Brenden Nel uses Du Toit's 100th cap — earned against the All Blacks — as the hook for a sweeping retrospective on a career that nearly ended multiple times before it reached its peak. The piece traces two ACL ruptures, the extraordinary father-son hamstring graft surgery that got him to the 2015 World Cup, and the 2020 compartment syndrome episode that came within minutes of costing him his leg. Nel's core argument is that Du Toit's longevity and consistency — 14 tackles per game averaged across a century of Tests, two World Rugby Player of the Year awards, a 28-tackle World Cup final — aren't just elite athleticism but the product of an almost freakish combination of physical resilience and mental makeup. The comparison to Frik du Preez is floated deliberately: Nel positions Du Toit as the defining Springbok forward of this century, the original hybrid loosie prototype, and a generational player whose full stature the game may only properly appreciate once he's gone.