Birthday Tribute | Akker van der Merwe | 17 June 2026 | Bulls · South Africa · Rugby Union
Picture a ruck on the floor at Kings Park, two Springbok hookers jaw to jaw, red cards incoming, and the rugby world watching with a mixture of horror and guilty delight. That was March 2019. That single moment would end up costing Akker van der Merwe a seat on the most celebrated bus in South African rugby history.
The 2019 World Cup squad left without him. Schalk Brits got on the plane to Japan. The Angry Warthog went to Manchester. What happened next is a story about character…
Born in Vanderbijlpark on this very day, 17 June 1991, and turning 35 today, Armand Hendrik Petrus van der Merwe has never been a player who fits neatly into anyone’s plan. He charges.
He carries. He plays like a man permanently trying to prove something, and for most of his career, that has been exactly what he was doing.
Happy Birthday, Akker. The warthog keeps going, and nobody has found a way to stop him yet.
GEORGE, OUTENIQUA, AND THE BROTHERS VAN DER MERWE
Van der Merwe was born in Vanderbijlpark but his family moved to George when he was young, and it is the Garden Route town that shaped him. He played at Outeniqua High School, where both he and his younger brother Duhan became the sixth and seventh international rugby players the school had produced.
Two brothers from the same backyard — Akker van der Merwe a Springbok, Duhan a Scotland international and two-time British and Irish Lions tourist. The rugby conversations at family dinners must be something to witness.
From Outeniqua, Van der Merwe won selection for the SWD Eagles at Under-16 and Under-18 level, representing his region at Grant Khomo Week, Academy Week, and Craven Week. He was not a headline schoolboy prospect. He was a hooker from the Garden Route who worked. That would be the theme of everything that followed.
THE LONG ROAD THROUGH POTCHEFSTROOM
After school he moved to Potchefstroom, representing the Leopards and NWU Pukke in the Varsity Cup. These were not glamorous rugby addresses. First Division Currie Cup. University competition. But he scored tries from hooker at every level he played, which was always the signal that something different was here.
His senior debut came in 2013 with the Leopards XV in the Vodacom Cup, and he marked the occasion in the way that would define his career: he scored in injury time. The following year he was a surprise inclusion in the Lions’ touring squad for the Australian leg of the Super Rugby season, scoring his first try for the club in only his second appearance. He had arrived.
The problem was the man in front of him. Behind Malcolm Marx, he spent much of his Lions career in the match 23. Two Super Rugby finals in 2016 and 2017, both as a substitute, both defeats. He was part of something brilliant without ever quite getting to celebrate it from the starting jersey.
A short loan spell at Racing 92 in Paris added European experience. The résumé grew. The frustration, quietly, did too.
THE NIGHT THAT COST HIM JAPAN
By 2018 with the Sharks, everything had aligned. He was starting regularly, carrying powerfully, and the Springbok call came that June — three caps against Wales and England. He was 27 years old and a Springbok at last. The 2019 World Cup felt within reach.
Then came Kings Park. Akker van der Merwe and Schalk Brits, both competing for the final hooker spot in Rassie Erasmus’s World Cup squad, came to blows in a Sharks versus Bulls derby. Both received red cards. Both were suspended. When the squad was announced, Brits was on it. Van der Merwe was not.
He later played down the incident publicly, but the reality was plain: he had come within a whisker of being part of the most celebrated Springbok squad in a generation. South Africa won the World Cup in Yokohama. He watched from somewhere else.
SALE, SELF-EXPRESSION, AND THIRTY-ONE TRIES IN MANCHESTER
What the England chapter revealed about Akker van der Merwe was something his South African career had only hinted at. He was more than a physical force. He was a personality.
He played 70 times for Sale Sharks over four seasons, scoring 31 tries — remarkable numbers for any hooker. He became one of the Premiership’s most dynamic forwards, a player whose involvement went well beyond scrums and lineouts.
Alex Sanderson, Sale’s director of rugby, described him as someone who brings infectious energy to everything he does, audible through the walls of the training ground.
Van der Merwe himself reflected that when he first arrived at Sale he was quite quiet, but he soon found an environment where he was encouraged to be himself. The rugby was outstanding. The man who came back to South Africa was different to the one who had left.
He walked away from his Sale contract early in June 2023 for one reason: family. Grandparents seeing the children only once or twice a year was not enough. South African culture and South African people were the pull. He went home.
THE HERD AT LOFTUS, AND CROKE PARK CALLING
The Bulls confirmed Akker van der Merwe on a three-year deal in July 2023. He was the fourth South African franchise of his career, arriving at Loftus with experience, aggression, and something to prove all over again. He has delivered. In the 2025 URC Grand Final at Croke Park, he came off the bench to score the Bulls’ only try of a 32-7 defeat to Leinster — a consolation scoreline, but a statement of continued relevance at the highest level.
And now, on the morning of his 35th birthday, he is in the Bulls squad preparing to face Leinster again in the 2026 URC final at Croke Park on 19 June — returning from a layoff that had kept him out since January, named in the travelling squad for what would be the Bulls’ best shot yet at European silverware. There is poetry in that timing. The Angry Warthog turns 35 today and may be charging at Croke Park in two days.
That is not a small thing. That is a rugby life lived properly.
Happy 35th Birthday, Akker. From all of us at Just Plain Sport — the warthog from George has never stopped charging, and the game is richer for it. 🎂🏉
📸 Images via SA Rugby / Vodacom Bulls / Backpage Pix / Profimedia
