South African-born Scottish international Duhan van der Merwe has been a revelation for the Six Nations side since making his debut in 2020.
The 28-year-old has gone on to earn 28-test caps for the Scots plus three for the British and Irish Lions during the 2021 tour to South Africa.
Scoring 17 test tries so far; the former South African U20 representative has been tipped to be one of the top try scorers at this year’s Rugby World Cup.
Speaking about the history of top try scorers at the tournament, several of the game’s greatest finishers sat down with World Rugby.
Discussing who could match the joint record of eight tries set first by the great Jonah Lomu in 1999 which was equalled by South African icon Bryan Habana at the 2007 edition before a second Kiwi, Julian Savea joined the list in 2015.
The legends listed van der Merwe as one of the best bets to top the charts this time around.
Labelling the 6’4” winger as an ‘Adonis’, former Wallaby Drew Mitchell went on to compliment the winger’s physique.
Joining Mitchell’s praises was former England winger Chris Ashton who said of the Scotland star, ‘If you were going to draw up a rugby player, you’d draw up Duhan.’
When it came to Habana’s turn to speak on the winger, the Bok legend said, ‘The first thing that comes to mind, is the one who got away.’
Highlighting what makes him special, Habana said ‘his work rate’, before saying ‘he is very much used as a ball carrier.’
Making note of his connection with Scottish flyhalf Finn Russell, Habana said ‘he does do incredibly well to run off Finn Russell’s shoulder quite a bit and that see’s him get to a lot of space.’
Check out the full video below to see what some of the games’ greatest-ever players think of the Scotland powerhouse.
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