{"id":324120,"date":"2025-12-19T06:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T06:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/324120\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T06:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T06:06:12","slug":"how-learning-to-fly-and-finding-jesus-put-beast-of-sale-back-on-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/324120\/","title":{"rendered":"How learning to fly and finding Jesus put \u2018beast of Sale\u2019 back on track"},"content":{"rendered":"

Typically, Alex Sanderson has an evocative, motivational theme for Sale Sharks\u2019 trip to Northampton Saints on Saturday.<\/p>\n

For the Gallagher Prem match at Franklin\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

Sale might not be whacking Fin Smith and Alex Mitchell with birch-tree branches \u2014 as Krampus does to children in some depictions \u2014 but you get the idea. Be the evil baddies who come to snatch things away from the precious darlings at Christmas, is the message.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he put the pictures up I was like, where is this going?\u201d says Sale captain Ernst van Rhyn, laughing. \u201cIt was this demon-like thing! I\u2019ll focus on the game-plan story behind it, I think.<\/p>\n

\"Person<\/p>\n

Sale\u2019s players have been told to channel the spirit of Krampus, the half-goat, half-demon figure<\/p>\n

ALAMY<\/p>\n

\u201cOur game is built on physicality. JJ van der Mescht, who\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sale need a result, as while they return to the Gallagher Prem buoyed by a 35-14 win against Clermont<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also understand that to compete in the Prem, you have to win away from home,\u201d Van Rhyn adds. \u201cSo we\u2019re going to try to punish Saints, and their party before Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s desire for forward power, off the field he is a man of deep faith and wholesome hobbies.<\/p>\n

\"Sale<\/p>\n

It takes two to stop Van Rhyn, a lock-cum-back-row who weighs in at 18st<\/p>\n

JAN KRUGER\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

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\u2019s father is an engineer whose work took him to China and Nigeria. Travel was in Van Rhyn\u2019s bones.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m reading more these days, but it\u2019s predominantly anything about aviation, whether that\u2019s autobiographies or flight magazines,\u201d Van Rhyn says. \u201cMy wife, Bianca, always laughs as we have to go to the airport earlier when we\u2019re travelling so I can look at the planes and go, \u2018This is this\u2019, and, \u2018That\u2019s how that works\u2019. And she\u2019s just got to smile and look interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Rhyn has flown for 50 training hours \u2014 ten of which have been solo \u2014 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. <\/p>\n

Van Rhyn\u2019s 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\u2019s Western Cape wine region, Van Rhyn was not destined to be a rugby player, try as he might. <\/p>\n

\"Ernst<\/p>\n

Van Rhyn enjoys a moment on the slopes with his wife, Bianca, who is subjected to early trips to airports to indulge her husband\u2019s passion for aviation<\/p>\n

TIMESGRAB<\/p>\n

He attended Paarl Gymnasium, which has produced more than 30 Springboks, from Schalk Burger (senior and junior) to Kobus Wiese, Jean de Villiers, Handr\u00e9 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably lost my way a bit,\u201d he says. \u201cDrinking has never been a massive problem, but it was definitely something holding me back. I couldn\u2019t have full control over it. I gave up drinking at the beginning of this year. I\u2019m not completely clean, but it\u2019s part of the journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always in the low point where you\u2019re almost willing to do anything. I would say I reached out to God. He comforted me. It\u2019s difficult to explain to someone who hasn\u2019t experienced it. But once you\u2019ve experienced it, you can testify to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Fans<\/p>\n

Despite some poor results, Van Rhyn is a hit with the Sale faithful, who pose in masks of their captain\u2019s face<\/p>\n

EWEN GAVET\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m enjoying my rugby the most I\u2019ve ever enjoyed it,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd that\u2019s not a reflection on previous teams or previous environments I\u2019ve been in. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more just a personal journey I\u2019ve been on. I\u2019m now very content, enjoying and feeling privileged to be able to do what I do, to contribute to something that\u2019s bigger than myself, which just makes things more worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy leading and I\u2019ve learnt over the years that sometimes with more responsibility I actually play better,\u201d he says. \u201cThe responsibility of captaincy has obviously been challenging at the start of the season, and we\u2019re not exactly where we want to be. We\u2019re going to try to learn and grow with the experience that comes. There\u2019s full faith in what we\u2019re doing and what we want to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Gallagher Prem<\/p>\n

Northampton Saints v Sale
Saturday, 3pm
TV: TNT Sports Extra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Typically, Alex Sanderson has an evocative, motivational theme for Sale Sharks\u2019 trip to Northampton Saints on Saturday. For…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-324120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}