Cornelis Johannes Grobbelaar (born 30 December 1997) is 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 the

United Rugby Championship The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. For sponsorship reasons the league is known as the Vodacom United Rugby Championship in ...

and 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 ...

. His regular position is hooker.

Rugby career

Grobbelaar was born and grew up 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 ...

. He attended and played rugby for Paarl Gymnasium and was selected for the squad for the 2015 Under-18

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 ...

tournament. His team won the main match at the tournament held in

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, beating 95–0 in the final. After the Craven Week tournament, Grobbelaar was selected for the South Africa Schools squad that participated in the 2015 Under-18 International Series. He started all three of their matches; he scored a try in their 42–11 win over Wales in their first match and helped his team to wins over

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in the other two. After school, he moved to

Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...

to join the academy. He played for them at Under-19 level in 2016, and the following year he was selected in the South Africa Under-20 squad for the

2017 World Rugby Under 20 Championship The 2017 World Rugby Under 20 Championship was the tenth annual international rugby union competition for Under 20 national teams. The event was organised in Georgia by rugby's governing body, World Rugby. Twelve nations played in the tournament, ...

. He started all five matches at the tournament, helping his side to a 23–23 draw against

, a 38–14 victory over

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and a 72–14 win over

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

(a match in which Grobbelaar scored two of South Africa's eleven tries) as South Africa topped

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to qualify for the semi-finals. A 22–24 defeat to

in the semi-finals ended their hopes of winning the competition, but they bounced back in the third-place play-off to beat France 37–15, with Grobbelaar scoring a further two tries. He made his domestic first class debut shortly after his return to South Africa, coming on as a replacement in the ' 54–22 victory over the in their 2017 Currie Cup Premier Division Round Three match. He became a regular on the Blue Bulls' replacement bench during the season, making a total of ten appearances. He also scored three tries during the season, in matches against , the and the . In 2018, Grobbelaar was included in the squad for their final match of the

2018 Super Rugby season The 2018 Super Rugby season was the 23rd season of Super Rugby, an annual rugby union competition organised by SANZAAR between teams from Argentina, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa. After two seasons in which 18 teams participate ...

against trans- Jukskei rivals the , and he made his

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 ...

debut by coming on as a second half replacement.

Honours

* Super Rugby Unlocked winner

2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

* Currie Cup winner

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 ...

* United Rugby Championship runner-up 2021–22 * Selected in the United Rugby Championship "Dream Team" for the 2021–22 season. * Bulls URC Players' Player of the Year 202

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Statistics

Test match record

References

External links

Johan Grobbelaar
at South Africa national rugby union team, Springboks * {{DEFAULTSORT:Grobbelaar, Johan South African rugby union players Living people 1997 births Rugby union players from Paarl Rugby union hookers Blue Bulls players Bulls (rugby union) players South Africa Under-20 international rugby union players South Africa international rugby union players 21st-century South African sportsmen