Schalk Burger relives his legendary hit on Fourie du Preez
Some tackles are so epic that they still get replayed and talked about 14 years after they happened. Schalk Burger’s legendary hit on Fourie du Preez is one of them.
Even though the flanker’s tackle on his Springboks teammate happened in 2009, the Bulls’ encounter with the Stormers in the United Rugby Championship over the weekend was the perfect opportunity to revisit the tackle.
Joining SuperSport for the match, the former Western Province flanker Burger was quizzed about the confrontation. He said:
“It doesn’t get any better than that. You’re playing the Bulls, I was a little bit injured before so I came off the bench at half time- you’re so up for it. You’re standing in the back field expecting them to do a box kick, so I was in the back field, Duane [Vermeulen] was playing flanker, next moment there was a bit of a line break and I’m coming, I’m charging and I think I’m going to get Pierre Spies from the side. Pierre popped it do him and if he kicked it immediately I would have had a double take at it. I would have had to run past him and tap him on the back and say ‘mate, I nearly got you.’ And when he did that hesitation, I was like ‘right, this is my chance. I’m not going to have a chance like this ever again.’
“Unfortunately it was Fourie, he is one of my best mates, there were a lot of other Blue Bulls I would have liked to tackle like that, by the way. I walked across to him afterwards and Fourie said ‘I didn’t think you could hit that hard, I thought it was Duane who hit me!’ He looked up and saw that it was a half balding Schalk Burger out there. But there’s probably a reason why I can’t pick my right shoulder up anymore.
“That was perfect technique, perfect technique. It was a bit of a mismatch, to be honest, but how tough is Fourie? Because I hit him with everything and he just gets up.”
Take a look:
🤤 “Okay this is my chance, I won’t have a chance like this again!”
😂 “He said I didn’t think you could hit that hard, I thought it was Duane!”
Schalk Burger telling the story of his massive hit on Fourie du Preez is just brilliant! pic.twitter.com/DtdWubyS2n
— SuperSport 🏆 (@SuperSportTV) February 20, 2023
