The Most Famous
RUGBY PLAYERS from South Africa
This page contains a list of the greatest South African Rugby Players. The pantheon dataset contains 13 Rugby Players, 4 of which were born in South Africa. This makes South Africa the birth place of the 3rd most number of Rugby Players behind New Zealand and France.
Top 4
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary South African Rugby Players of all time. This list of famous South African Rugby Players is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Francois Pienaar (1967 - )
With an HPI of 42.28, Francois Pienaar is the most famous South African Rugby Player. Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages on wikipedia.
Jacobus Francois Pienaar (born 2 January 1967) is a retired South African rugby union player. He played flanker for South Africa (the Springboks) from 1993 until 1996, winning 29 international caps, all of them as captain. He is best known for leading South Africa to victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup. After being dropped from the Springbok team in 1996, Pienaar went on to a career with English club Saracens.
2. Joost van der Westhuizen (1971 - 2017)
With an HPI of 31.68, Joost van der Westhuizen is the 2nd most famous South African Rugby Player. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Joost van der Westhuizen (20 February 1971 – 6 February 2017) was a South African professional rugby union player who made 89 appearances in test matches for the national team, scoring 38 tries. He mostly played as a scrum-half and participated in three Rugby World Cups, most notably in the 1995 tournament, which was won by South Africa. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest scrumhalves of all time. He captained the national side on ten occasions and was part of the team that won South Africa's first Tri-Nations title in 1998. Domestically he played for the provincial side the Blue Bulls from 1993 to 2003, with whom he won two domestic Currie Cup trophies in 1998 and 2002, and from 1996 until his retirement in 2003 played Super 12 rugby for Northern Bulls (later renamed the Bulls). He was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame in 2007 and later into the World Rugby Hall of Fame. In 2011, it was announced that van der Westhuizen had motor neurone disease. He eventually began using a wheelchair and experienced speech problems, yet still raised awareness of the disease through his charity, the J9 Foundation.
3. Bryan Habana (1983 - )
With an HPI of 29.83, Bryan Habana is the 3rd most famous South African Rugby Player. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.
Bryan Gary Habana OIS (born 12 June 1983) is a South African former professional rugby union player. Playing mainly as a wing, he is widely considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of the sport. He played for the Golden Lions, the Blue Bulls and Western Province in South Africa, for the Bulls and the Stormers in Super Rugby, and for Toulon in the French Top 14, and won 124 caps for the South Africa national team. Habana was part of the South Africa team that won the 2007 Rugby World Cup and was one of the stars of the tournament, his eight tries equalling the record for a single tournament set by Jonah Lomu in 1999. He was subsequently named the 2007 IRB Player of the Year. During the 2015 Rugby World Cup Habana equalled Lomu's career record of 15 tries in World Cups. He is in second place among all time test try scorers, with 67 tries.
4. Schalk Burger (1983 - )
With an HPI of 24.47, Schalk Burger is the 4th most famous South African Rugby Player. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Schalk Willem Petrus Burger Jr. (born 13 April 1983) is a South African former professional rugby union player. He played as a flanker for Saracens in the English Premiership and has won 86 caps for South Africa. He was a member of the 2007 Rugby World Cup-winning team, has twice been named South African Rugby Player of the Year (in 2004 and 2011), and was named IRB Player of the Year in 2004, among other accolades. He also holds the record for the most appearances (84) and most tries scored (13) by a Springbok flanker. However, Burger's physical approach has also resulted in him being shown a yellow card six times in international rugby, second only to Italy's Marco Bortolami (7 times) as of June 2014. Burger has also suffered injuries, especially to his neck and knee, which have sidelined him for considerable periods at a time. He has also played four times for the Barbarians.
Pantheon has 4 people classified as rugby players born between 1967 and 1983. Of these 4, 3 (75.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living rugby players include Francois Pienaar, Bryan Habana, and Schalk Burger. The most famous deceased rugby players include Joost van der Westhuizen. As of April 2022, 2 new rugby players have been added to Pantheon including Joost van der Westhuizen and Schalk Burger.
Living Rugby Players
Go to all Rankings
Francois Pienaar
1967 - Present
HPI: 42.28
Bryan Habana
1983 - Present
HPI: 29.83
Schalk Burger
1983 - Present
HPI: 24.47
