PJ Vermeulen - FNB Player of the Week
Player Profile
PJ – pronounced Peejay, not Peeyee – Vermeulen is well on the way to being a rugby star and he has only just turned 18.
In 2004 he burst upon the scene playing centre for Griqualand West at the Craven Week in Nelspruit, a centre with great footwork and a turn of speed and a tough tackler. His performance earned him selection for the South African Academy side which beat the South African Schools side 35-26 at Ellis Park.
He had expected no such thing and was "shocked, then happy and then excited".
Loffie Eloff, the South African Under-19 coach, ("I learnt a lot from him") took the 17-year-old into his practice group for the URB's Under-19 World Championship to be played in Durban in April 2005.
That earned him selection into the starting team for the final. His try set the Baby Boks on the road to victory when hooker Chilliboy Ralepelle charged down a clearing kick PJ, following up, leapt onto the ball as it fell in the in-goal area.
South Africa won that match 20-15. But it was a long, long way from Hopetown.
PJ comes from the dry, mineral rich world of the Northern Cape. He started his schooling – and rugby in Sub A (Grade 1) – in Hopetown before moving to Noord-Kaap Hoërskool as a boarder in Std 6. Then he was a flyhalf, moving to centre in Std 8, his first year in the 1st XV.
There he stood for the national anthem at ABSA Stadium in Durban and there he stood with his friends to face the challenge of the haka. Asked about the haka, PJ said: "It was more funny than frightening."
Winning in Durban was "the greatest experience in my rugby career". The team stuck together and celebrated the night away.
He has come a long way from Hopetown all right, and is on a journey to rugby stardom.
After his six-year-old start in the gamer, he played for two season at the Under-13 Craven Weeks (1999 and 2000) and then for Griquas Under-16 at the Grant Khomo Week. This year he is captain of the Griquas side for Craven Week, his first experience as a captain, though he is a prefect in the koshuis at Noord-Kaap.
He enjoys the life of a boarder and all the friends he has made. He is proud of his school and pleased with their rugby season so far. They have played all their matches away from home, sometimes leaving at three in the morning to get to Springbok and play. But they are top of the log in the Griquas competition.
Getting up early seems inevitable, however freezing cold it may be in Kimberley. On Thursday morning when this website spoke to him, he had just finished an exam. It was then eight o'clock on a freezing Kimberley morning. Because he and five of his schoolmates were in the Griqua team and heading off to Potchefstroom for Bondedag, they wrote their exam at six in the morning, supervised by one of the rugby coaches, before climbing into the bus for Potch. Obviously rugby is important to the staff at Noord-Kaap (Bondedag is a day when the Craven Week teams of the Central unions meet for a warm-up tournament for the Craven Week.)
PJ has a rugby pedigree. His father played for Griquas at the primary and high school Craven weeks, two years at each, and his uncle André Vermeulen played more than a hundred matches for Griquas as a centre. Not surprisingly his parents, Myburgh and Stella, follow his career with enthusiasm.
PJ played for Noord-Kaap's 1st XI from Std 8 and is in their Top 20 athletics team, but rugby is his main focus and, he hopes, his career.
Petrus Jacobus Vermeulen was born in Hopetown on 3 March 1987. He hopes to study after school, preferably something to do with sport. He has had offers from the Blue Bulls, the Leopards and Western Province. He is a Western Province fan, his sister is at Stellenbosch and it may not be too long a stretch of the imagination to see him swapping thorn bushes for the oak trees of Stellenbosch next year, with aspirations of being yet another Matie Springbok.
