RWC15-Spotlight On – David Philander

Namibia’s mercurial wing David Philander won his 23rd cap against Kenya last Saturday and played a major role in their 46-13 victory with a superb performance.

With Namibia holding a slight 10-3 lead towards the end of the first half, two inspirational moments by Philander turned the match firmly in Namibia’s favour.

He first outpaced Kenya’s cover-defence to score a try from a cross-kick by fly-half Theuns Kotze and then left Kenya’s defence for dead with a great sidestep to send Darryl de la Harpe over for a try. This gave Namibia a 25-6 lead at halftime and from there on they never looked back as they completed a comfortable victory.

Philander has produced many such magical moments in his rugby career that has seen him moving to the land of the world champions, New Zealand to further his profession.

Born and raised in Windhoek, he was more of a soccer player at school and only started playing rugby towards the end of high school.

“The school’s rugby coach saw me playing soccer and saw I had a bit of speed so he asked me if I was keen to play rugby. Then I realised that with the pace I had, I could actually make something out of it, so I decided to stick with rugby,” he said.

Philander started playing for Unam in his final year at school in 2008 and the following year joined Rehoboth Rugby Club.

He made a big impact with his explosive runs and bewildering side-steps and went on to win the Player of the Season award, while also helping Rehoboth win their first – and to date only – Premier League title.

Philander soon broke into the national squad and was duly selected to represent Namibia at the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.

The Namibian team’s training base was in a town called Gisborne and it was here that Philander was spotted by a New Zealand coach who offered him an opportunity to play there after the World Cup and Philander didn’t take long to make up his mind.

“Having always been a fan of the All Blacks I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to go over and experience how rugby is played there. My son, Jose, was born during the World Cup so we couldn’t go immediately, but six months later i moved there with my wife and son,” he said.

Philander joined Poverty Bay on the east coast of New Zealand but he took a while to adapt by his own admission.

“My first season there was my hardest – having to acclimatise and adapt to how the game is played there was not easy. I think we ended fifth in the league that year and I didn’t score so many tries. I weighed 97kg at the time but the game is really fast and expansive over there, so I had to pull up my socks and I dropped almost 10kg,” he said.

Philander however stuck to his task and things went better the following year. He shone for Old Boys Marist club in the pre-season, scoring 20 tries in 12 matches and then impressed for Poverty Bay which narrowly missed out on a place in the semifinals of the Heartland Cup.

By 2014 he joined Spotswood club in Taranaki where he has been playing with top players like All Blacks wing Waisake Naholo and Seta Tamanivalu who was the 2014 ITM Player of the Year and this year they reached the semifinals of their regional competition.

Philander meanwhile also played a major role in helping Namibia qualify for this year’s World Cup in Madagascar last year. They needed to beat Madagascar by at least 50 points in their final match to qualify and ended up winning 89-10 – a match that Philander still rates as his most memorable one.

“The feeling that was in the team before the match was incredible. When we dressed into our playing gear there was this feeling of belief, it’s like we had the jitters and we went into a prayer that I led and we came out guns blazing, it was something that I’ll never forget,” he said.

And now, just a few weeks ahead of his second World Cup, Philander reckons that Namibia will make a good impression.

“I think we’ll be much better prepared. We’ve got more professional players available to us so I think it’s going to be a really good World Cup for us compared to the last time,” he said.

One on One with David Philander

When and where were you born?

1 April 1987 in Windhoek

What schools did you attend?

Constantia and St Georges Primary Schools and David Bezuidenhout High School.

Who played a big role in your life?

I looked up to my dad a lot. Being the only bread winner in the house and with me having two sisters and a brother, he was always working and he had to do extra jobs on the sidelines but he never complained about it.

I always looked up to England’s former fullback Jason Robinson. He’s a small player and has a similar build to me, but he had the world’s speed and I saw that with his small body he could do so much and went so fast. He always inspired me to try and do something similar.

What team do you support?

Growing up I was always a Crusaders fan as well as the All Blacks. But recently I’ve become a Waikato Chiefs fan.