Cornelius Wilhelmus "Corra" Dirken (born 22 January 1938 in Vereeniging, South Africa) is a former South African

South Africa national rugby union team

The South African national rugby union team are 2009 British and Irish Lions Series winners. They are currently ranked as the fourth best team in the IRB World Rankings and were named 2008 World Team of the Year at the prestigious Laureus World Sports Awards.Although South Africa was instrumental...

 rugby

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 player. He won 10 caps and scored three tries.

Rugby career

Dirksen made his international debut against Australia

Australia national rugby union team

The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...

 in 1963. The 1967 series against France

France national rugby union team

The France national rugby union team represents France in rugby union. They compete annually against England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales in the Six Nations Championship. They have won the championship outright sixteen times, shared it a further eight times, and have completed nine grand slams...

was probably his finest hour, scoring all three of his test tries against them. The French were understandably quite wary of him throughout that series, dubbing him Le Monster (The Monster).

He played for the then Northern Transvaal (now Blue Bulls) and the Oostelikes (Easterns) club in Pretoria, which later merged with Adelaars to form Naka Bulls. After retiring from playing he qualified as a medical practitioner.

External links

• Corra Dirksen at the Springbok Rugby Hall of Fame