Joost van der Westhuizen

Joost van der Westhuizen

van der Westhuizen playing for South Africa in 1995
Birth name	Joost van der Westhuizen
Date of birth	(1971-02-20)20 February 1971
Place of birth	Pretoria, South Africa
Date of death	6 February 2017(2017-02-06) (aged 45)
Place of death	Johannesburg, South Africa
Height	1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)
Weight	90 kg (14 st 2 lb; 198 lb)
School	Hoërskool F.H. Odendaal
University	University of Pretoria
Occupation(s)	Professional Sportsman
Rugby union career
Position(s) Scrum-half Provincial / State sides Years Team Apps (Points) 1993–2003 Blue Bulls () Correct as of 26 December 2007 Super Rugby Years Team Apps (Points) 1996–2003 Bulls 71 (61) Correct as of 15 September 2012 International career Years Team Apps (Points) 1993–2003 South Africa Springboks (non test) 89 22 (190) (90) Correct as of 15 September 2012

Joost van der Westhuizen (20 February 1971 – 6 February 2017) was a South African professional rugby union player who made 89 appearances in test matches for the national team, scoring 38 tries. He mostly played as a scrum-half and participated in three Rugby World Cups, most notably in the 1995 tournament, which was won by South Africa. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest scrumhalves of all time.^[1]

He captained the national side on ten occasions and was part of the team that won South Africa's first Tri-Nations title in 1998. Domestically he played for the provincial side the Blue Bulls from 1993 to 2003, with whom he won two domestic Currie Cup trophies in 1998 and 2002, and from 1996 until his retirement in 2003 played Super 12 rugby for Northern Bulls (later renamed the Bulls). He was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame in 2007 and later into the World Rugby Hall of Fame.

In 2011, it was announced that van der Westhuizen had motor neurone disease. He eventually began using a wheelchair and experienced speech problems, yet still raised awareness of the disease through his charity, the J9 Foundation.^[2]