Typically, Alex Sanderson has an evocative, motivational theme for Sale Sharks’ trip to Northampton Saints on Saturday.
For the Gallagher Prem match at Franklin’s Gardens, the Sale director of rugby has told his team to channel the spirit of Krampus, the mythical, horned, cloven-footed, half-goat, half-demon figure who, according to central European folklore, accompanies Saint Nicholas at Christmas. Where St Nick rewards nice children with presents, Krampus punishes the naughty ones.
Sale might not be whacking Fin Smith and Alex Mitchell with birch-tree branches — as Krampus does to children in some depictions — but you get the idea. Be the evil baddies who come to snatch things away from the precious darlings at Christmas, is the message.
“When he put the pictures up I was like, where is this going?” says Sale captain Ernst van Rhyn, laughing. “It was this demon-like thing! I’ll focus on the game-plan story behind it, I think.
Sale’s players have been told to channel the spirit of Krampus, the half-goat, half-demon figure
ALAMY
“Our game is built on physicality. JJ van der Mescht, who’s a big ball-carrier, leads a lot of the Prem stats regarding ball carries. We need to stop momentum there, through the middle and also at set-pieces. Then with Alex Mitchell, Fin Smith, those guys, they like to have the ball in their hands, and the more time you give a guy like Fin Smith, the better he is.”
Sale need a result, as while they return to the Gallagher Prem buoyed by a 35-14 win against Clermont Auvergne at the Stade Marcel-Michelin in the Champions Cup last Saturday, they have won only two of six in the league. Those were against Newcastle Red Bulls and Gloucester, the defeats coming away to Bath, Saracens, Leicester, and at home to Exeter. At least, they feel, they are getting their toughest away trips out of the way first.
“We also understand that to compete in the Prem, you have to win away from home,” Van Rhyn adds. “So we’re going to try to punish Saints, and their party before Christmas.”
Without meeting him, you would be forgiven for thinking that these messages delivered by Van Rhyn, the 6ft 4in, 18 stone, 28-year-old old lock-cum-back-row, would be chilling. Yet while he is a beast on the field, who epitomises Sale’s desire for forward power, off the field he is a man of deep faith and wholesome hobbies.
It takes two to stop Van Rhyn, a lock-cum-back-row who weighs in at 18st
JAN KRUGER/GETTY IMAGES
When he is not playing rugby, Van Rhyn is attempting to become a commercial pilot. He developed a love of aviation as a child, visiting the cockpits of aircraft. Van Rhyn’s father is an engineer whose work took him to China and Nigeria. Travel was in Van Rhyn’s bones.
“I’m reading more these days, but it’s predominantly anything about aviation, whether that’s autobiographies or flight magazines,” Van Rhyn says. “My wife, Bianca, always laughs as we have to go to the airport earlier when we’re travelling so I can look at the planes and go, ‘This is this’, and, ‘That’s how that works’. And she’s just got to smile and look interested.”
Van Rhyn has flown for 50 training hours — ten of which have been solo — and taken theoretical exams, but a few injuries and swapping Cape Town for Salford have stalled his progress towards his goal of getting his wings.
Van Rhyn’s path to Sale, where he hopes to keep performing to push for Springboks caps, may look fairly smooth on paper, but he views it as a series of ups and downs. In the low moments, he turned to God. When his family settled in Paarl, in South Africa’s Western Cape wine region, Van Rhyn was not destined to be a rugby player, try as he might.
Van Rhyn enjoys a moment on the slopes with his wife, Bianca, who is subjected to early trips to airports to indulge her husband’s passion for aviation
TIMESGRAB
He attended Paarl Gymnasium, which has produced more than 30 Springboks, from Schalk Burger (senior and junior) to Kobus Wiese, Jean de Villiers, Handré Pollard and Grant Williams. At 15, Van Rhyn was small, so he went to read logistical management at Stellenbosch University when he left school, but following a growth spurt, by 20 he was the captain of a South Africa Under-20 side which featured future World Cup winners Damian Willemse and Manie Libbok, his Stormers team-mates.
While always a Christian, he felt he was straying in his social life, by drinking too much and not committing fully to his faith. A year before he moved to Sale, in 2023, Van Rhyn was struggling. He was injured, his partner was working away regularly, and he floundered.
“I probably lost my way a bit,” he says. “Drinking has never been a massive problem, but it was definitely something holding me back. I couldn’t have full control over it. I gave up drinking at the beginning of this year. I’m not completely clean, but it’s part of the journey.
“It’s always in the low point where you’re almost willing to do anything. I would say I reached out to God. He comforted me. It’s difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it. But once you’ve experienced it, you can testify to it.
“In plain terms, I had to have my own personal encounter with Jesus, and that changes everything. I tend to be pretty hard on myself, but I had realised where I was going in my life, and wanted to change the type of man I was going to be.”
Despite some poor results, Van Rhyn is a hit with the Sale faithful, who pose in masks of their captain’s face
EWEN GAVET/GETTY IMAGES
The Sale move was all about extracting himself from his comfort zone. He married Bianca, and they found their community via the Audacious Church in Salford. Van Rhyn feels this grounding is helping his career to thrive.
“I’m enjoying my rugby the most I’ve ever enjoyed it,” he explains. “And that’s not a reflection on previous teams or previous environments I’ve been in.
“It’s more just a personal journey I’ve been on. I’m now very content, enjoying and feeling privileged to be able to do what I do, to contribute to something that’s bigger than myself, which just makes things more worthwhile.”
Having been made captain this season, Van Rhyn has not enjoyed many victories yet. But, as with his faith, he sees the tough moments as all part of the journey.
“I enjoy leading and I’ve learnt over the years that sometimes with more responsibility I actually play better,” he says. “The responsibility of captaincy has obviously been challenging at the start of the season, and we’re not exactly where we want to be. We’re going to try to learn and grow with the experience that comes. There’s full faith in what we’re doing and what we want to achieve.”
So, if you see Van Rhyn successfully playing the role of Krampus, the Christmas bad guy, at Northampton on Saturday, be assured that he is no horn-headed monster of a forward. There are far more layers to Van Rhyn than that.
Gallagher Prem
Northampton Saints v Sale
Saturday, 3pm
TV: TNT Sports Extra