WHAT A WHIRLWIND few months for Jean Kleyn. You never know where rugby will take you but the Munster lock must be surprised at how things have worked out.
The latest step in his remarkable journey will come this Saturday in Pretoria, less than an hour’s drive up the road from Linden, the Johannesburg suburb where Kleyn grew up. He will win his first South Africa cap when he starts against Australia in the opening game of the Rugby Championship.
This is a gigantic opportunity for Kleyn with the World Cup now so close. Go well this weekend and the 29-year-old will take a step towards earning a place in the Springboks’ 33-man squad for the big show in France.
He has form on his side, having been outstanding in Munster’s drive to URC success. Reports from South Africa say Kleyn has been training the house down with the Boks in recent weeks. Rassie Erasmus has labeled him “a monster player.”
If he does get to the World Cup, Kleyn could end up playing against Ireland in the pool stage in Paris in September. That’s the same Ireland he earned five caps for in 2019, including two appearances at that year’s World Cup.
The Springboks hadn’t shown any interest in Kleyn at that stage so he didn’t hesitate in pledging his allegiance to Ireland when Joe Schmidt came calling. Kleyn had been in Ireland for three years and the chance to play Test rugby was impossible to turn down. As it transpired, Kleyn would never play for Ireland again after that World Cup.
Schmidt’s decision to pick Kleyn for the tournament was met with plenty of criticism, particularly given that the popular, long-serving Devin Toner missed out, but the abuse directed at Kleyn was simply unacceptable. He deleted his Twitter account and learned to block out that kind of noise. These days, Kleyn genuinely doesn’t seem interested in what people he doesn’t know have to say about him. A lesson for us all.
Current Ireland head coach Andy Farrell never called Kleyn into his squad and even after the best season of Kleyn’s career in 2022/23, went with other second rows in his World Cup training squad this summer. Over the past four years, Kleyn had developed a stoic attitude towards the possibility of further Ireland honours.
“Obviously, I’d be delighted to play for Ireland again and represent the country,” he said in January. “It would be massive for me but if it doesn’t happen, it’s just part of life.
“I’m doing as much as I can here at Munster to put my hand up and at the end of the day, that’s all I can do. I can’t do more than my best. That’s what I feel like I’m putting out there.”
At that stage, Kleyn was clearly only thinking about Ireland in terms of Test rugby, although it never occurred to us to ask him about South Africa. World Rugby’s birthright amendment that allows players to transfer unions was announced in 2021, meaning Kleyn has been eligible for the Boks since October 2022. It just never really entered our thoughts because that eligibility law seemed more relevant to lower-profile nations.
The Boks were watching though. Funnily enough, SA Rugby were one of the unions to vote against the change in regulations. But as soon as it was passed, they started monitoring players who could switch back. Kleyn was one of them.
And they can’t have been anything but impressed watching last season. Kleyn went to a new level for Munster, bringing his usual quality in the unglamorous work at set-piece and ruck time, along with improved handling skills and more dynamism in the tackle and carry. He went from workhorse to totem for Munster.
Evidently, it wasn’t enough to change the minds of Farrell and his forwards coach Paul O’Connell. They have invested time in Ryan Baird, Kieran Treadwell, and Joe McCarthy in recent seasons and stuck to their guns with that crop backing up the frontline trio of James Ryan, Tadhg Beirne, and Iain Henderson. It’s a fine group of second rows.
The Boks, though, wanted another tighthead lock in their group. 6ft 8ins, 121kg Kleyn fits the bill and now he gets a chance to represent his native land for the first time. He didn’t play any underage rugby for South Africa so there will be huge pride in Pretoria.
Kleyn has admitted to being overwhelmed by this opportunity. It’s still odd that players can switch national teams but them’s the rules. Don’t hate the player, and all that. It’s perfectly possible for Kleyn to have pride about calling Ireland home but also feel proud to be South African.
What this means for his future at Munster is unclear. Kleyn is contracted for next season but will obviously no longer be Irish-qualified so it may be difficult for Munster to convince the IRFU he should stay beyond the summer of 2024. His soon-to-be Springboks team-mate RG Snyman, who is on the bench this weekend, is also out of contract at Munster next summer and it seems unlikely that the province will be able to keep two non-Irish-qualified second rows into the 2024/25 campaign.
It could be that Snyman moves on after next season, but Kleyn would certainly not be short of suitors if playing for the Springboks means his future lies outside Ireland.
That Kleyn is a professional player at all is impressive. He went to school at Hoërskool Linden, which has very little rugby pedigree. They used to have training sessions with 12 players sometimes. Kleyn didn’t rise through any provincial representative ranks. He wasn’t involved in the famous Craven Week festival, where promising South African players tend to grab national attention for the first time.
He went on to study mechanical engineering at Stellenbosch University and decided to keep playing rugby for fun. Kleyn didn’t see himself as a possible pro. But his size and doggedness caught the eye. Suddenly in 2012, he was on the Western Province U19 team. Two years later, he made his Super Rugby debut for the Stormers on the same day Cheslin Kolbe got his first appearance. Current Boks Siya Kolisi, Damian de Allende, Duane Vermeulen, and Deon Fourie also played in that game.
Erasmus had been watching closely in his role with SA Rugby and when he and Jacques Nienaber moved to Munster in 2016, they brought Kleyn over to Ireland too.
Limerick has become a real home for Kleyn in the seven years since. He married his wife, Aisling, in 2021 and they have recently built a house close to Munster’s training centre. Back in February, they celebrated the arrival of their first child, Eli.
“It’s going to be one of life’s great adventures,” said Kleyn soon before Eli was born. That applies to the Munster man’s rugby career too.
The South African who didn’t look like making it as a pro rugby player but ended up an Ireland international, then switched back to his native land to become a Springbok. It has been quite the journey so far and there’s plenty of road left ahead.
As Kleyn makes his Boks debut against Eddie Jones’ Australia on Saturday, he will be cheered on from all over Munster.
