A Little Lass For Lood!

The Bok lock is delighted to have become a dad for the second time – even if he had to watch baby Annah’s arrival on Facetime

- Cyril Blackburn

He's won one award after the other for his prowess on the pitch but ask him what his greatest achievement is and this is what he’ll tell you: becoming a dad.

Lood de Jager and his wife, Constance (both 27), recently welcomed the latest addition to their family – daughter Annah Fray, who entered the world on 15 September weighing a hearty 4,56kg. “She’s incredibly cute,” Constance says. “She sleeps a lot and she’s always hungry – definitely her dad’s child in that respect.”

She grins at her husband. “At first, Annah looked more like her dad but now she’s starting to look like me and we’re really relieved!”

Sadly for Lood, he missed his daughter’s birth by one day. While Constance was in labor at Mediclinic Vergelegen in Somerset West near Cape Town, the towering Bok lock, who currently plays for the Sale Sharks in Manchester, England, was frantically trying to get back to SA.

Lockdown restrictions make international travel complicated – so when Annah arrived, he was sitting at the airport in Amsterdam, desperately sad he wasn’t at his wife’s side. “But he was on FaceTime when she was born,” Constance says. “And he was really emotional.”

“It felt surreal,” Lood says. “You can’t imagine you’ve just welcomed a new baby while you’re sitting in an airport.”

Both parents are besotted with little Annah – as is big brother, Elijah (nearly two), whom the couple adopted in 2018.

“He just wants to hold her the whole time,” Constance says. Having missed the delivery of his daughter, Lood was determined to make up for lost time.