Cornal Hendricks (18 April 1988 – 14 May 2025) was a South African

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 ...

player for the in

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 ...

, the in the

Currie Cup The Currie Cup () is South Africa's premier domestic rugby union competition featuring teams representing either entire provinces or substantial regions within provinces. Although it is the premier domestic competition, four South African franc ...

and the in the Rugby Challenge. His regular position was

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...

. He died on 14 May 2025 of a suspected heart attack.

Background

Hendricks was born and raised in

Paarl Paarl (; ; derived from ''parel'', meaning "pearl" in Dutch) is a city with 294,457 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is the largest city in the Boland, Western Cape, Cape Winelands. Due to the growth of the Mbekweni ...

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...

, South Africa, in a poor area called Hillcrest. He came from a rugby-playing family. His father, brother, and grandfather all played, and his mother was a significant influence. He attended Bergrivier Hoërskool, a lesser-known school, and was not selected for prestigious youth tournaments like

Craven Week The Craven Week is an annual rugby union tournament organised for schoolboys in the Republic of South Africa. The tournament started in July 1964, and is named after the legendary Springbok rugby union player and coach Dr Danie Craven. The ...

, yet fought his way into Boland's under-21 and senior teams. Hendricks died of a heart attack on 14 May 2025, at the age of 37. He was married to Stephaney, and they had two children. Hendricks was deeply religious, crediting his faith for helping him through his health struggles and emotional challenges.

Career

Boland Cavaliers

Hendricks represented local team through various underage competitions and graduated to the first team. Hendricks made his first team debut for Boland against the in the

2008 Currie Cup Premier Division The 2008 Currie Cup Premier Division season (known as the ABSA Currie Cup due to sponsorship) was contested from 20 June through to 25 October. The Currie Cup is an annual domestic competition for provincial rugby union teams in South Africa. T ...

season. He remained a first team regular for them over the next five seasons.

Cheetahs / Free State Cheetahs

Hendricks signed a contract with the to join them for the 2014 season, having previously agreed a deal with them for 2013, but failed to play for them in 2013 due to his

South Africa Sevens The South Africa Sevens is an annual rugby sevens tournament that is held in South Africa. It is currently hosted in Cape Town and is part of the Sevens World Series run by World Rugby. A South African leg of the World series has been included ...

commitments. Hendricks was included in the squad for the

2014 Super Rugby season The 2014 Super Rugby season is the fourth season of the 15-team format for the Super Rugby competition involving teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. For sponsorship reasons, this competition is known as Asteron Life Super Rugby ...

and made his debut – also scoring a try – in a 21–20 defeat to the in

Bloemfontein Bloemfontein ( ; ), also known as Bloem, is the capital and the largest city of the Free State (province), Free State province in South Africa. It is often, and has been traditionally, referred to as the country's "judicial capital", alongsi ...

Stormers / Western Province

Hendricks returned to the

for the 2016 season, signing a two-year deal with and the . However, he was diagnosed with a serious heart condition and failed to make any appearances for them.

Toulon

In December 2016, French

Top 14 The Top 14 () is a professional rugby union club competition that is played in France. Created in 1892, the Top 14 is at the top of the national league system operated by the National Rugby League (France), France National Rugby League, also ...

side announced the signing of Hendricks until the end of the 2016–17 season. However, a few weeks after announcing this deal, Toulon stated that he would not join the team after all.

Representative rugby

Hendricks was also a member of the

team during the 2011–12 and

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

IRB Sevens World Series The SVNS, known as the HSBC SVNS for sponsorship reasons, is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World ...

. In 2013, he was included in the squad for the

2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens The 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens was the sixth edition of the Rugby World Cup Sevens. The tournament was held at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia. New Zealand won the tournament, defeating England 33–0 in the final. Attendance for the tourname ...

. In May 2014, Hendricks was one of eight uncapped players that were called up to a

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 ...

training camp prior to the

2014 mid-year rugby union tests The 2014 mid-year rugby union internationals (also known as the summer internationals in the Northern Hemisphere) were international rugby union matches mostly played in the Southern Hemisphere during the June international window. These matches w ...

. Hendricks made his debut on 14 June 2014 for the

Springboks The South Africa national rugby union team, commonly known as the Springboks (colloquially the Boks, Bokke or Amabhokobhoko) is the country's national team governed by the South African Rugby Union. The Springboks play in green and gold jersey ...

against Wales in Durban.

Honours

* Currie Cup Player of the Year (

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

) * Pro14 Rainbow Cup runner-up

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

* Currie Cup winner

* United Rugby Championship runner-up 2021–22

Springbok statistics

Test Match Record

Pld = Games Played, W = Games Won, D = Games Drawn, L = Games Lost, Tri = Tries Scored, Con = Conversions, Pen = Penalties, DG = Drop Goals, Pts = Points Scored

International Tries

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hendricks, Cornal 1988 births 2025 deaths South African rugby union players South Africa international rugby union players Boland Cavaliers players Cheetahs (rugby union) players Rugby union players from Paarl Rugby union wings South Africa international rugby sevens players Rugby sevens players at the 2014 Commonwealth Games Commonwealth Games gold medallists for South Africa Commonwealth Games rugby sevens players for South Africa Commonwealth Games gold medallists in rugby sevens World Games gold medalists for South Africa World Games medalists in rugby sevens Free State Cheetahs players Bulls (rugby union) players Blue Bulls players Rugby union centres Medallists at the 2014 Commonwealth Games Medalists at the 2013 World Games 21st-century South African sportsmen