Saracens build on Springbok link by signing flank legend Schalk Burger

'He will add a huge amount of experience and quality'

(Getty Images)

Schalk Burger is by no means the highest-achieving South African ever to join Saracens, an English club with access to pots of Springbok money.

Francois Pienaar and John Smit both led their country to world titles before materialising in Greater London. But the recruitment of the battle-scarred flanker still says plenty about the pulling power of the form team in European rugby.

Assuming Burger is still in one piece following final blasts with the Japanese team Suntory Sungoliath and the Cape Town-based Stormers, he will link up with the reigning Premiership champions in the summer and spend two seasons smashing seven bells out of all and sundry in time-honoured fashion.

Should the 32-year-old contribute even half as handsomely as his namesake Jacques, the revered Namibian who plans to call it quits at the end of term, Saracens will consider themselves blessed.

The new signing retired from international rugby following South Africa’s third-place finish at last year’s World Cup, his fourth tournament in an 86-cap Test career.

“He will add a huge amount of experience and quality,” said Mark McCall, the Saracens rugby director, who believes the club’s most prominent young England-qualified forwards – the hooker Jamie George, the locks Maro Itoje and George Kruis, the back-rowers Jackson Wray and Will Fraser, and the Vunipola brothers – can only benefit by playing alongside an operator of such standing.

Saracens have been criticised in the past for investing too heavily in South African imports and the link remains strong: three of the club’s current crop of front-rowers – Schalk Brits, Jared Saunders and Petrus du Plessis – hail from Springbok territory, as do the lock Alistair Hargreaves, the flanker Michael Rhodes, the scrum-half Neil de Kock and the naturalised centre Brad Barritt. On the flipside, there is no denying the strength of the champions’ academy and its positive impact on England’s set-up.

Another much-travelled international flanker, James Haskell, has put his wanderlust to one side and opted to stay put. The Wasps captain has signed a contract extension, thereby ending speculation that he might move to Gloucester in time for next season.

“This is the only Premiership club I’ve ever known and it feels like home,” said Haskell, who returned to the former European champions in 2012 after stints in France, Japan and New Zealand. “It wasn’t a decision I took lightly. Being 30, it was important to choose a team I felt were going to compete and ultimately win some silverware. I believe we are on an upward trajectory.”

Haskell added that he was keen to stay in the country in pursuit of more England honours. He can certainly expect to feature in the new red-rose squad scheduled to be named by the national head coach Eddie Jones next week, especially as four rival blind-side flankers – Tom Wood of Northampton, Dave Ewers of Exeter and two Leicester forwards, Ed Slater and Mike Williams – are on an alarmingly long casualty list.