Birthday Tribute – Os du Randt | 8 September 2026 | Free State Cheetahs · Springboks · Rugby
Happy Birthday to Jacobus Petrus du Randt, born on 8 September 1972 in Elliot, Eastern Cape, 54 today. He played 80 Tests at loosehead prop, wore Springbok No. 619, and retired as the most-capped forward in South African rugby history.
Twelve years separate South Africa’s first two Rugby World Cup titles, in 1995 and 2007. Du Randt started the final both times — the only Springbok who can say that.
Everyone in the game just calls him Os.
A DIESEL MECHANIC OFF A FARM IN ELLIOT
Du Randt grew up on a farm outside Elliot, in the Eastern Cape, where the physical work laid the base for everything that followed. Heavy lifting and manual labour taught him strength, technique and foot positioning years before any scrum coach did.
He went to school at Adelaide Gimnasium and played for SA Schools in 1990, without yet looking like a future Springbok. Off the field he trained as a diesel mechanic apprentice at Barlows Caterpillar, working on earth-moving equipment, and did his national service at the School of Armour in Bloemfontein.
The build that made him a Test-class scrummager earned him his nickname before he was a Springbok at all. Os is Afrikaans for ox, and once his teammates started using it, nothing else stuck.
NINE CURRIE CUP GAMES, THEN A SPRINGBOK JERSEY
Free State called him into their senior Currie Cup squad in 1994, after Ollie le Roux was promoted to the Springboks. Du Randt had played only a handful of matches for the union before the national selectors came looking.
He made his Test debut on 8 October 1994 against Argentina at Boet Erasmus Stadium in Port Elizabeth, aged 22, in a 42-22 win. Within a season, under Kitch Christie, he had gone from provincial newcomer to first-choice Springbok loosehead prop.
He started four of South Africa’s six matches at the 1995 Rugby World Cup at loosehead — the pool win over Australia, the quarter-final against Western Samoa, the semi-final against France, and the 15-12 final win over New Zealand at Ellis Park on 24 June. Garry Pagel started the other two pool games, against Romania and Canada, in his place. Four years later, Rugby World magazine rated Du Randt the second-best loosehead prop the game had produced.
OVERWEIGHT, DEPRESSED, AND CERTAIN IT WAS OVER
In 2000, at 27, Du Randt suffered injuries that kept him out of Test rugby for almost five years. He was overweight, he has said he was depressed, and he genuinely believed he would never play again.
In 2003 Rassie Erasmus, then coaching Free State and a former Springbok teammate, phoned him and talked him into trying again. “When I returned to rugby in 2003, it was to play for Free State and Free State alone,” Du Randt recalled. “I didn’t think I would wear the Springbok shirt again, ever in my life.”
JAKE WHITE’S RECALL, AND THE CROWDS CHANTING HIS NAME
New coach Jake White brought him back into the Springbok fold for the visit of Ireland to Bloemfontein in June 2004, over criticism in the media about his age. “When Jake White gave me the opportunity to play for my country once more, it felt like the first time all over again,” Du Randt said. “There was a lot of stuff going around – most of it about me being too old.”
He was a key figure in the Springboks’ 2004 revival, which won the Tri-Nations and the IRB World Team of the Year award. He picked up his 50th cap that year, in a 32-16 defeat to England at Twickenham, and home crowds started chanting “Os… Os” every time he touched the ball.
EIGHTY MINUTES IN THE 2007 FINAL, AND A CLUB OF ONE
Jake White kept selecting him through the doubts, and in 2007 Du Randt started every knockout match of a second World Cup campaign at loosehead. He played the full 80 minutes of the final in Paris on 20 October 2007, a 15-6 win over England at the Stade de France.
It made him the only Springbok to start South Africa’s first two World Cup-winning finals. Before him, only two men anywhere had started two winning World Cup finals — Australians John Eales and Tim Horan, in 1991 and 1999. Three of their teammates, Dan Crowley, Phil Kearns and Jason Little, won both titles too, but did it from the bench or missed selection the second time round.
Nobody waited as long between finals as Du Randt’s twelve years.
He was given the job of carrying the Springbok mascot, Bokkie, to the final after the semi-final win over Argentina. He forgot to pack it.
Asked what he had eaten for breakfast during that tournament, he gave reporters a two-part answer: a bowl of porridge, then fifteen chickens.
SA Rugby president Mark Alexander later summed up the scrum he anchored for over a decade. “Os was revered as one of the best props of his generation and he anchored many scrums, not only for the Springboks, but also in the colours of the Cheetahs.”
BACK ON THE LAND, AND INTO THE HALL OF FAME
Du Randt retired from international rugby the moment the final whistle went in Paris. He later worked as a scrum coach at the Cheetahs and served as a scrum consultant to the Springboks during their 2011 World Cup preparation.
In November 2019 he was inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in Tokyo, alongside Richie McCaw and Graham Henry. Rassie Erasmus, by then Springbok director of rugby, called him simply: “the legend in South African rugby history… what he’s achieved is simply incredible.”
He has since gone back to where it started, farming full-time. Former teammate CJ van der Linde put it plainly: “Os is a legend in South African rugby. Even little children know who he is. His name will be mentioned for many years still.”
From all of us at Just Plain Sport — a diesel mechanic’s apprentice ended up the only Springbok to start both of South Africa’s first two World Cup wins, and he still went home to the farm that built him in the first place. 🎂🏉
Just Plain Sport | Published 8 September 2026 | Free State Cheetahs · Springboks · Rugby
