Cape Town - Rugby players who can operate at No 4 lock and blindside flank are not usually your flashiest operators, but Stormers newcomer Ben-Jason Dixon is not your average forward.
The hybrid or utility-type hard man normally does the hard yards, the donkey work that the ‘showponies’ at No 8 don’t want to get their hands dirty with, but Dixon is the exception.
Here is a 24-year-old who likes to play musical instruments and even sing, has a degree in industrial engineering from Stellenbosch University and can rough it up with the best in the United Rugby Championship and Champions Cup.
It has been a sudden rise to the Stormers starting line-up for the former Paul Roos Gymnasium head prefect, having been part of the Western Province structures as a youngster, as well as being a Junior Springbok in 2018.
Dixon has had to wait his turn to graduate to the Stormers, starting with Maties in the Varsity Cup, but is now thriving following three consecutive starts as the Cape side try to manage a lock crisis that has sidelined Salmaan Moerat and Adre Smith for the rest of the season, and will keep Ernst van Rhyn and Gary Porter out for a while longer.
“I got the call from Dobbo (coach John Dobson) on the Sunday afternoon, after the London Irish game, and he said that Salmaan got injured and we are backing you to start at lock,” Dixon said this week ahead of Sunday’s Champions Cup clash against London Irish in Brentford (3pm SA time kick-off).
“I was very excited and told some of my close friends that I can’t wait to play, and it’s been great. I am just living by the motto that you’ve got limited opportunities and just have to use it.
“There’s a lot to learn. You can go through a week and not pick up a lot, so the growth has been happening where I need to put myself in those positions, where I look at the same amount of videos that they look at – or I have to ask questions.
“So, I am trying to do that more, because the leaders take responsibility … They are not just going to hand you responsibility, and it’s been good to learn from them. The attention to detail is impressive.”
It’s clear that Dixon would prefer playing at No 7, but while he is taking his chance in the engine room of the second row, he still wants to showcase his skills, stating that he is a “creative person”.
He came of age in the victory over the Bulls at Cape Town Stadium last month, where captain Steven Kitshoff mentioned how he could “hear” the big tackles that Dixon was making.
But now the Stormers need to bounce back against Irish after losing 24-17 to Glasgow Warriors last week, with defence a major priority.
“It is about finding out why did we give so many opportunities to the opposition and why did things go wrong? That’s where we learnt a lot about it being a different challenge playing the overseas teams – it’s not the same as playing at home – and there are certain things you need to adapt a little bit, like getting out of your own half properly, the attention to detail over there,” Dixon said.
“Sometimes for some of the young players, it’s a new challenge, and we feel like because it’s a tighter game and we are playing away – we are not at home and not ahead by three tries – we feel like we are under pressure, and feel like we must do something crazy or something where we go out of system.
“In a sense, it’s about sticking to our system and processes, and just calming down a bit.
“We spent a lot of time in meetings, talking about the errors (in defence) made. I made some errors myself … Maybe it’s not so easy to see as a spectator, but small little errors where we sometimes go out of system.
“But we have a lot of confidence (and feel) that our defensive system works, and that won’t change. Personally, I love defence as well – I love making tackles and love putting the opposition under pressure.
“We are not concerned that it’s a system error, or that there’s something wrong with our defence. We are focusing on sticking to the plan.”
@AshfakMohamed