Izak Jacobus "Cobus" Visagie (born 31 October 1973) is a South African former

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

footballer who played at tighthead prop.

Early life

Visagie attended the

Paul Roos Gymnasium Paul Roos Gymnasium is a leading public dual medium (Afrikaans & English) high school for boys in the town of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape province of South Africa, which opened on 1 March 1866 as Stellenbosch Gymnasium. Described as South A ...

Stellenbosch Stellenbosch (; )A Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer.
Thomas Baldwin ...

and then studied auditing and accounting at

Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch University (SU) (, ) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Sahara ...

, where he also played for Maties (Stellenbosch University) and

Western Province Western Province or West Province may refer to: *Western Province, Cameroon *Western Province, Rwanda *Western Province (Kenya) *Western Province (Papua New Guinea) *Western Province (Solomon Islands) *Western Province, Sri Lanka *Western Provinc ...

Rugby representing the under–20 and under–21 teams. Visagie finished his Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in accounting and audit at

in 1996. He worked seven years for

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers, also known as PwC, is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, alon ...

as a chartered accountant, whilst playing professional

rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby union: 15 players per side *** American flag rugby *** Beach rugby *** Mini rugby *** Rugby sevens, 7 players per side *** Rugby tens, 10 players per side *** Snow rugby *** Tou ...

Playing career

Visagie made his provincial rugby debut for in 1997 and continued to represent the union as well as the

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

team, the until 2003. Visagie won three Currie Cups with

Rugby, the last in 2001 with a home win (at

Newlands Newlands may refer to: Places Australia * Newlands, Queensland, a locality in the Whitsunday Region * Newlands, Western Australia, a town in the Shire of Donnybrook–Balingup Ireland * Newlands Cross, Dublin, named after the former Newlands ...

, Cape Town) over the Natal Sharks. He also earned 46 Super 12 caps with the Stormers. He earned 29 caps for his country and was part of the

Springbok The springbok or springbuck (''Antidorcas marsupialis'') is an antelope found mainly in south and southwest Africa. The sole member of the genus (biology), genus ''Antidorcas'', this bovid was first Species description, described by the Germa ...

team that reached the

1999 Rugby World Cup The 1999 Rugby World Cup () was the fourth Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial international rugby union championship. It was the first Rugby World Cup to be held in the sport's History of rugby union#The professional era, professional era. Four a ...

Semi Final. He was selected to the team of the tournament with fellow Springbok frontrow

Os du Randt Jacobus Petrus "Os" du Randt (born 8 September 1972) is a former South African rugby union loosehead prop who retired as the most-capped forward in the history of the Springboks (a record since surpassed by John Smit, Victor Matfield, Tendai ...

. Visagie moved to the United Kingdom to play for the English Premiership club

Saracens file:Erhard Reuwich Sarazenen 1486.png, upright 1.5, Late 15th-century History of Germany, German woodcut depicting Saracens ''Saracen'' ( ) was a term used both in Greek language, Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to ...

after being passed over for the 2003 World Cup Springbok squad. He played 121 games for Saracens and was voted into the Guinness Premiership team of the season for three consecutive years. He also represented the Barbarians (8 caps), World XV (3 caps) and the Southern Hemisphere XV that played in the Tsunami Relief game at Twickenham, before retiring from professional rugby in May 2009.

Test history

Later career

Visagie joined Premier Team Holdings Limited as Commercial Director of the Group of four companies based in the United Kingdom. In 2011, he was appointed Principal for Africa at Templewood Merchant Bank. The following year, he co-founded Africa Merchant Capital, based in London to focus exclusively on corporate finance advisory, private equity deal origination and syndication in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Accolades

Visagie was one of the five South African Rugby players of the Year for 1999, along with

Breyton Paulse Breyton Paulse (born 25 April 1976 in De Keur, Koue Bokkeveld) is a South African former rugby union player who played on the wing for the national team, the Springboks, from 1999 to 2007. He played 64 test matches for South Africa, scoring 26 ...

Joost van der Westhuizen Joost van der Westhuizen (20 February 1971 – 6 February 2017) was a South African professional rugby union player who made 89 appearances in test matches for the national team, scoring 38 tries. He mostly played as a scrum-half and partici ...

, Hennie le Roux and the eventual winner of Player of the Year, Andre Venter.

References

External links

*
Saracens profile
* Vrydagaand/Saterdagaand (2008) * http://www.sporting-heroes.net/rugby/south-africa/cobus-visagie-3057/international-rugby-matches_a04571/ \ {{DEFAULTSORT:Visagie, Cobus South African rugby union players Afrikaner people South Africa international rugby union players Stormers players Western Province (rugby union) players Saracens F.C. players Barbarian F.C. players Living people 1973 births Place of birth missing (living people) Doping cases in rugby union Alumni of Paul Roos Gymnasium Stellenbosch University alumni Rugby union players from the Western Cape Rugby union props 1999 Rugby World Cup players South African expatriate rugby union players in England Stellenbosch RFC players