Player Profile - Marius Hurter
By Mally
September 24 2004
Marius Hurter
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Position | Tighthead Prop |
| Date of Birth | 08/10/1970 | |
| Place of Birth | South Africa | |
| Height | 6' 2'' | |
| Falcons Debut | v Harlequins (A), 7 November 1998 | |
| Previous Teams | Western Province | |
| Honours | South African International |
One of the cornerstones of the Falcons team for almost six years, Super Marius Hurter is one of those players who gets on with the job so quietly that when he’s there you don’t notice him and when he’s not there you wonder how we will cope. He never seems to have a bad game. Built like a tank, hard as nails, an excellent ball carrier and a 1995 World Cup winner to boot, Marius is one of the most underestimated players around.
As an uncapped player in South Africa’s 1995 World Cup squad, Marius still collected a medal and won 13 caps and first came to Rob Andrew’s attention playing for a World XV against the Falcons in the 1998 Sanyo Cup at Twickenham. With only one senior tight-head prop Paul Van-Zandvliet in the squad, we had been lucky in the Championship season that PVZ was never injured, but we needed cover, and when the original Tank was injured in a car crash that summer, Hurter couldn’t arrive quick enough. The youngster Ian Peel did a good job on the tight side of the scrum until Hurter finally joined Newcastle after the Currie Cup in November 1998, and immediately made an impression with his solid scrumaging and tackling.
In March 1999, one week before the Tetley’s Cup Semi-final at Richmond, Marius was injured in a league match at Northampton, and Peel again deputised. However, Hurter came back to play in the Final defeat to Wasps, and was voted Supporters’ Player of the Year in 1999/2000 for his battling qualities in the club’s scrap against relegation. In 2000/01, as Micky Ward, George Graham and Ian Peel battled for the loose-head place, Hurter cemented his place at 3 and was a member of the Twickenham Cup-winning side of that year, also coming on as a substitute in the 2004 Cup win to become one of only three players, Tom May and Ian Peel being the others, to play in all three of Newcastle’s professional-era Cup finals.
Now the Falcons second-longest-serving player behind Jonny Wilkinson, Marius Hurter is still one of the first names on the team-sheet with over 100 Premiership appearances to his name, well over 90 of them in the starting lineup, but with only three tries in that time remains an unglamorous player. Yet as I have said, whenever he is not named in the team the first question asked is "Where is Marius?" Now 33, Hurter may not have much time left but he will continue to drive the Falcons forward with his battering ram performances.