Jacques Vermeulen hopes his move to Sale Sharks helps make his Springbok dream come true.
Exeter loose forward Jacques Vermeulen hopes his move to Sale Sharks helps make his Springbok dream come true.
The 30-year-old played for Western Province and the Durban-based Sharks before heading to England in 2019.
Vermeulen has made 105 appearances for Exeter, helping them win both the English Premiership and Champions Cup in the 2019-20 season.
But they have struggled recently, and go into their final Premiership match of the season, against Sale at Sandy Park, languishing in ninth position on the 10-team table with just four wins from 17 matches.
“I still obviously want to play international rugby – if I get the opportunity to one day maybe play for the Springboks that will obviously be a dream come true,” Vermeulen told BBC Sport.
“I do think that obviously new season, new team, I think they’ve got some really good players,” he said of Sale. “If you win trophies and stuff with a team I think that just makes it so much easier for you to get into international set ups.
We’ve seen it now with Northampton Saints like Juarno Augustus – he was never in the picture and he goes in a Champions Cup final and into the Springboks set-up.
“It just shows you if you play in finals and semi-finals that opens the door for higher honours.”
Vermeulen said Exeter’s 2024-25 season – in which they also lost all four of their Champions Cup pool matches – had been “really frustrating” following a period of success.
“You go through three years where you play every year in finals and you create such good friendships,” he explained.
“Then you go through one off-season and you basically lose half your mates and all the guys that you basically played with for the last three years.
“You get like a whole bunch of new lads in, then it’s quite tough because at Exeter and the university you’ve got a lot of young lads, it’s quite hard to connect with them.
“They’re all good lads, but they’ve got a lot to learn in a rugby sense, how to win games, how to knuckle down on what areas you need to be good at.
“I think that will come for them, but I just thought like when I made the decision ‘these lads need to write their own stories’.”
