Much has changed for both DTH van der Merwe and Saracens since the then unknown Canadian youngster got his first taste of European professional rugby with them a dozen years ago.
Since then the English club has gone on to become one of the strongest in Europe, winning four domestic titles, as well as the Champion Cup on two occasions, while van der Merwe has been a Pro14 champion with both Glasgow Warriors and the Scarlets.
“I was the medical joker call-up for two months,” he recalled.
“I was just a guy from Canada… playing local rugby in Canada, was just 20 years old, had just been called up to the Canada squad and had two caps going into the World Cup. That’s when I got the opportunity (to join Saracens)
“I think Dan Scarborough was the winger that went down (injured) during the World Cup. I only played one game for them which was against Leeds.
It was just before the period when they really started to turn things around. Me and Alex Goode, we used to play in the A League. We played four or five A League games, so it was good times, but it was before Saracens became what they are today.”
Any prospect of extending his involvement probably ended when he subsequently went to the Dubai Sevens and broke his ankle, but van der Merwe seized his big opportunity when he joined Glasgow Warriors a few years later, making his name as one of the Pro14’s most prolific finishers. The club has not performed as well in the Champions Cup, however and he acknowledges that they must raise their level against the reigning English champions if they are to claim the victory that would allow them to top the pool on the head-to-head.
“We just have to focus on ourselves and bring a real physical mentality to the game,” said van der Merwe. “In the first game against them earlier this season, we showed that we can match them in that area. There wasn’t really much in that game, a bounce of the ball here or there, or maybe a different call from our key playmakers would maybe have gotten us over the line. Clearly, 13-3 isn’t a big score and it could have gone either way. Hopefully we can get the job done this weekend.”
While coaches normally seek to keep players focused on winning matches, rather than thinking about bonus points or margin, Glasgow’s coach Dave Rennie broke with that convention last weekend when telling his players they needed to get four tries to earn a bonus point and they duly achieved that goal.
It will be a similar situation this weekend, particularly if Edinburgh win tomorrow night’s match against Montpellier to put Glasgow through to the quarter-final as well as themselves, since it will then be all about securing that required 11 point win to edge the head-to-head with Saracens and van der Merwe accepted that knowing that will be a factor.
“That was probably one of the first times we’ve been told we need four tries before a match,” he said.‘It does change things a little bit, so, yeah, in terms of finishing top of the group, we need to make sure we get more points than Saracens in terms of how the points for and against works.”
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