Bethlehem is a town in the Eastern Free State named after the Hebrew term for “house of bread”.

It has more churches than you can throw a stick at and also the popular Wooden Spoon Restaurant. It is a wheat-growing region and where Free State Stars, the football side, are based.

Other than that, the town is unremarkable but for the fact that two magnificent rugby players were born there to Francois and Jo-Helene just over 30 years ago.

Afrikaner people, the Du Plessis are a family who has farmed for generations. Bismarck and Jannie grew up as typical boys of the veld, forearms thick and shoulders sturdy thanks to the demands of the land. It is probably why the pair has stood out for so long; the farms no longer produce the hard men who used to graduate so seamlessly to the Springboks.

You can reel their names off: Mannetjies Roux, Henry Honiball, Os du Randt, Hempies du Toit, Piet “Spiere” du Toit (grandfather of Pieter-Steph), Tiaan Strauss, Tommie Loubscher and so many more

Bismarck and Jannie were packed off to boarding school in Bloemfontein where they soon made a name for themselves at Grey College, South Africa’s prolific rugby nursery.

With Free State for so long a pipeline to Durban rugby, it was no surprise that Bismarck found himself in Durban 11 seasons ago. Jannie would follow in 2008 and together the pair would form one of the most lethal pairings in Super Rugby.

Jannie was that rarest of beasts, a tighthead who could not only hold up his end but impose himself. Strong and square, he set about establishing himself as South Africa’s most formidable number three.

If Jannie was cut from the traditional cloth that makes up a prop forward, Bismarck was positively freakish for a hooker. Broad across the chest and thick in the legs, he was more destructive than any hooker in Springbok history. South Africa has always taken pride in its physical prowess, but Bismarck elevated himself beyond the norm. He intimidated with his power and gave both the Sharks and the Boks a fiercely menacing edge.

Jannie became a permanent fixture, but Bismarck’s run through the years clashed with a prime John Smit. It was a tricky dynamic for management to juggle, but somehow they made it work, Smit even taking his protégé under his wing.

Remarkably, Bismarck still accumulated a record 130 Super Rugby caps and earned a reputation as one of the tournament’s hard men. Occasionally he veered into violence, as we saw earlier this season, but when you play as close to the edge as he does, you’re bound to slip up at some stage.

The pair became firm fixtures in the Sharks set-up, the ultimate tag-team, never far from one another in thought and deed.

They could also be cranky. It’s an open secret that they could be challenging to work with, as Jake White and others discovered. Ironically, they signed off for the Sharks yesterday and their next port of call is Montpellier where the man in charge is White.

This wasn’t by choice, mind. When they signed, White was still unemployed. No-one could have guessed there would be a reunion. It’s unlikely to be a warm one.

Bismarck would be the first to admit that he could be overly emotional, but is that really such a bad thing in a player? Emotion is often what drove him to such staggering heights as a hooker.

Were you to put together a Springbok XV made up of the best players post-1992, chances are good that the brothers Du Plessis would make the cut.

They already have a place in the record books as the most capped set of Bok brothers – 42 Tests together – and both have appeared in two World Cups. But for injury, they are likely to extend both counts in the months to follow.

They brought steel and strength to the Sharks and deserve immense credit for always being ruthlessly professional and loyal. Not all players are.

Together at the Sharks they never gave less than their best, always in the vanguard, always driven by the sweet smell of success.

Au revoir, legends. – © Sunday Tribune