PIERRE Schoeman has experienced big occasion before, but the Edinburgh prop’s description of what he is anticipating on Saturday when they meet two-time former champions Munster in a Champions Cup quarter-final goes some way to explaining why he and so many of his fellow South Africans are heading for Europe.
According to their international team’s coach Rassie Erasmus, some 500 of their compatriots are now plying their trade overseas and for all that he is among those who have arrived after changes in regulations have meant he must wait five years to qualify as Scottish under residency rules, Schoeman reckons he is already getting the chance to experience rugby at the highest level.
“Even the Pro14 and the Premiership is taking over world rugby, but I must say, I’ve heard that we’re going to get like 40,000 tickets sold, so, it’s almost like a Test match for the fans and for us,” he said. “Johan van Graan (Munster’s head coach) and Munster, they all handle it like a Test match, aiming to get to the semis, as well as our own ambitions and aspirations.
“I played Super Rugby in South Africa and we also played in semi-finals and Currie Cup finals in stadiums with thirty or forty thousand sold out. I’ve played in those circumstances, but I must say, with my Edinburgh brothers here in Scotland, with the guys with the kilts on, it’s going to be nice.”
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Schoeman arrived only last summer to a place that is often described as a rugby city, by dint of hosting the national stadium, but has under-performed badly in the professional era. The ever jovial 24-year-old’s description of the environment he entered bears testimony to the rapid improvements that were underway when he arrived, however.
“I must give credit to coach Cockers (Richard Cockerill) and the management, as well as the players,” he said.
“You learn a lot from guys like Ross Ford, Stuart McInally, WP Nel, even Allan Dell, guys that have been there games in games out and that’s international rugby, not only club rugby, even guys like Fraser McKenzie that’s been here decades.
“You learn a lot from them not only about the culture, but about discipline, how you go about big games and how you also go about less big games, because you have to prepare the same, regarding games you lost like Zebre and the Kings. Maybe that cost us in the Pro14 a bit, so it’s the same preparation you need continuously week-in week-out.”
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Sharing his rugby DNA with many of Saturday’s opponents as the product of Pretoria’s Blue Bulls where van Graan and two of his meatiest forwards CJ Stander and Arno Botha learned their trade, Schoeman knows that the forthcoming challenge will be of a different order, confronting men who are used to winning knockout matches in European rugby’s most important club and provincial competition in what is expected to be a forward oriented battle.
“We’re looking forward to that and coach Cockers has done some work already in the past two days in preparation,” he said.
“There’s some battered bodies. You can’t take the foot off the pedal in games like this. You’ve even got to go twice as hard.
“I know you’ve got to be wise as well, but they manage us very nicely and coach Cockers has been through a lot of similar situations as a player and a coach, so he knows what it’s about. Big focus on the scrums and set-piece and the only thing about that is you can’t talk the talk, you have to walk the walk, so you have to train it. There’s no other way.”
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