Former Lions and Springboks winger Ruan Combrinck has revealed the worst phone call he ever got from ex-head coach Heyneke Meyer.
A talented outside back, Combrinck was a star man for the Lions team that reached three consecutive Super Rugby finals between 2016 and 2018 and won the Currie Cup in 2015.
Even before then, he was one of the premier wingers in South African rugby with the added bonus of being a long-range place kicker but despite his excellent form, he had to wait until 2016 to make his Test debut.
Meyer’s call
His debut would come in the second Test against Ireland during the June Internationals in 2016 when he came off the bench to score a crucial try in South Africa’s come-from-behind victory over the visitors.
His cameo would earn him a first Test start in the series decider the following week and a phone call from ex-Springboks boss Meyer who had been replaced by Allister Coetzee after the 2015 World Cup exit.
Meyer called the winger to express his regret of not selecting him the year earlier and told Combrinck that he should have been in his World Cup team that ultimately lost in the pool stages to Japan but would finish third overall after a semi-final defeat to New Zealand.
“The worst phone call I ever had was after the second Test when we played Ireland in Port Elizabeth,” Combrinck told former teammate Courtnall Skosan on the latter’s podcast Skosan Unplugged.
“Heyneke Meyer phoned me and he was the head coach of the Springboks for the previous World Cup.
“He said to me ‘Until today, my biggest regret was not taking you to the World Cup, you should have been there, you should have been at the World Cup’.
“And I’m thinking to myself, why did you phone me and tell me that I should have been there? And then I didn’t go to the World Cup in 2019.
“That was a bad phone call to get.”
While Meyer’s call did not sit too well with Combrinck at the time, looking back he was able to take some positives away from it.
“But it is pretty nice to know that you were in someone’s plans before but at the end of the day everything worked out the way it was supposed to happen,” he added.
Life after rugby
Combrinck would go on to play seven times for Coetzee’s Springboks in 2016 but his career from then was riddled with injuries which hampered his chances of reclaiming a place in the Boks squad meaning that he would miss the 2019 World Cup success
He would eventually link up with Meyer though when he joined the former Springboks boss at French club Stade Francais in 2019 with the winger returning to South Africa in 2021 to join the Bulls
However, continued struggles with injuries and form resulted in Combrinck calling time on his career and the now 34-year-old turning his attention to farming.
