Vickerman: From green to gold

Dan Vickerman learned his rugby in South Africa, but reached the top with the Wallabies, writes SIMON BORCHARDT.


Australian rugby owes Bishops a debt of gratitude.

Were it not for the Cape Town school, and rugby coaches Paul Dobson and Leonard Kaplan in particular, Dan Vickerman would probably not have gone on to play professional rugby at all, let alone 63 Tests for his adopted nation.


‘Daniel was an undisciplined kid at school and I think it was rugby that gave him that direction,’ recalled Dobson in an interview with SA Rugby magazine in 2002, four months before Vickerman made his…