Ruan Nortjé (born 25 July 1998) is a South African professional

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 ...

who as of 2025 plays 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 lock.

Rugby career

Nortjé grew up in Pretoria and represented his local at the Under-18 Academy Week in 2016. He joined the Blue Bulls academy after school, and played for their Under-19 team in 2017. In 2018, Nortjé was included in the South Africa Under-20 squad for the

2018 World Rugby Under 20 Championship The 2018 World Rugby Under 20 Championship was the eleventh annual international rugby union competition for Under 20 national teams. The event was organised in France by rugby's governing body, World Rugby. Twelve nations played in the tournamen ...

. He played in all three of their matches during the pool stage – a 33–27 victory over

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, a 30–17 win over

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and a 29–46 defeat to

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. South Africa qualified for the semi-finals as the runner-up with the best record, but fell short in the semifinal against

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, losing 31–32, with Nortjé scoring one of South Africa's tries. He scored another try in their third-place play-off against

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, helping his side to a 40–30 win. Upon his return to South Africa, he 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 ...

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 ...

* Pro14 Rainbow Cup runner-up

* United Rugby Championship runner-up 2021–22 * United Rugby Championship Ironman award for 2021–22 season * Named in the 2021–22 and 2023–24 United Rugby Championship Elite XV team * Bulls URC Player of the Year 202

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Statistics

Test match record

References

External links

Ruan Nortjé
at South Africa national rugby union team, Springboks * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nortjé, Ruan South African rugby union players Living people 1998 births Rugby union locks Blue Bulls players Bulls (rugby union) players South Africa Under-20 international rugby union players Rugby union players from Pretoria South Africa international rugby union players 21st-century South African sportsmen