Growing up in South Africa, Gerhard Wessels had one dream: to become a professional rugby player.<\/p>\n
Then, aged 19, he and his brother were involved in a car crash and his sporting ambitions were shattered.<\/p>\n
He recounts the aftermath of the accident, saying: “I suffered sever leg injuries. I cracked my back. Both my shoulders were broken.<\/p>\n
“I got told by the doctors that they recommend me not to play rugby or contact sports again.”<\/p>\n
A year later and having travelled to England, he was employed as a farm labourer in Cambridgeshire. The physical nature of Wessels’ work convinced him that he’d recovered enough from his injuries to return to the rugby pitch.<\/p>\n
A stint at Newmarket rugby club followed, and with no ill effects Wessels moved to National Division Two outfit Cambridge. It was there he experienced a sliding doors moment.<\/p>\n
With his visa running out and a return to South Africa just months away, a teammate suggested Wessels join the British Army as he was a member of the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
“I never knew anything about that,” Wessels confesses. “I went back to get my passport, book an appointment with the Army career office in Cambridge and never looked back.”<\/p>\n
Wessels enlisted into the Army, joining the Royal Engineers in 2005. His prowess as a rugby player soon saw him earn his first senior Army cap in 2007, going on to represent the red shirt in capped fixtures on a further 26 occasions.<\/p>\n
Hanging up his boots from playing in 2016, Wessels wasted little time switching to a fruitful coaching career. Leading the Sappers to five Corps finals in six seasons and securing three consecutive Corps Championships cemented his reputation to gel teams into successful sides.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since 2023 Wessels has been a key member of the Army senior men’s coaching team, embracing a variety of roles including backs, attack and defence coach.<\/p>\n
Now serving as a Staff Sergeant and elevated to one of the most prestigious roles in military sport, Wessels is desperate to tap into the determination that saw him overcome such a significant setback in his formative playing days and mastermind Inter Services glory.<\/p>\n
He said: “Army rugby has played a massive part in my life as a player as a coach.<\/p>\n
“And to be given this opportunity to lead the Senior side will be a massive honour for me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Growing up in South Africa, Gerhard Wessels had one dream: to become a professional rugby player. Then, aged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":891878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-891877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}