David Skippers (original) (raw)
Bio
David Skippers
Expertise
South Africa
Articles Written
5905
After completing his journalism studies at Cape Town Academy, David started out as a sports reporter at Independent Newspapers in South Africa where he worked for their Cape Argus and Cape Community Newspapers titles.
After leaving the newspaper industry, he joined the Planet Rugby staff as a rugby writer in 2011 and has been writing about the 15-man oval ball game ever since.
A former club rugby player in Cape Town, David’s claim to fame is that he played at provincial level for a Western Province development side in 1997 under the guidance of former Springbok coach Peter de Villiers. He describes that experience as “a very interesting time in my life”, with De Villiers’ penchant for funny comments, during his stint in charge of the Boks, something which David covered with a degree of authority – due to obvious first-hand knowledge – as a journalist during that period.
A staunch Stormers supporter, one of David’s highlights was watching the men from the Cape win the inaugural United Rugby Championship title when they beat their arch rivals the Bulls in Cape Town in 2022.
Of all the facets of play in rugby, David enjoys tackling the most and rates former Samoa and Wasps hooker Trevor Leota as the biggest hitter of them all. Former Western Province and Springbok centre Tinus Linee is a close second in that department, while he reckons All Blacks front-row Ofa Tu’ungafasi puts in the biggest tackles amongst the game’s current crop of players.