Nic Groom

Full name	Nicholas James Groom
Date of birth	(1990-02-21) 21 February 1990 (age 34)
Place of birth	King William's Town, South Africa
Height	1.71 m (5 ft 7+1⁄2 in)
Weight	81 kg (12 st 11 lb; 179 lb)
School	Rondebosch Boys' High School
University	University of Cape Town
Rugby union career
Position(s) Scrum-half Current team Edinburgh Youth career 2008–2011 Western Province Amateur team(s) Years Team Apps (Points) 2010–2011 UCT Ikey Tigers 8 (5) Senior career Years Team Apps (Points) 2011–2015 Western Province 69 (50) 2011–2016 Stormers 57 (25) 2016–2018 Northampton Saints 49 (35) 2018–2019 Lions 21 (15) 2018 Golden Lions 4 (5) 2019–2021 Edinburgh 22 (25) 2021 London Irish 4 (0) 2021 Tel Aviv Heat 0 (0) Correct as of 4 February 2022 International career Years Team Apps (Points) 2015 Barbarians 1 (0) 2016 South Africa 'A' 1 (0) Correct as of 27 May 2018

Nicholas James Groom (born 22 February 1990) is a South African rugby union player. He plays as a scrum-half.

Career

A winner of the Varsity Cup with UCT in 2011, Groom received a swift call up to the Stormers side at the tail-end of the Super Rugby season to replace the injured Dewaldt Duvenhage and Ricky Januarie and he made a couple of substitute appearances. The next 18 months were to see him limited to Western Province appearances and he was a Currie Cup winner with the Streeptruie in 2012. 2013 saw the departure of Duvenhage and Groom was now in a one-on-one fight with Louis Schreuder for the Stormers and Province number 9 jersey and as a result he saw much more game time. He was a Currie Cup runner up in 2013 and he largely had to make do with appearances from the substitutes bench as Schreuder stole a march in the battle to be first choice scrum-half. However, he was to become a Currie Cup winner again in 2014, this time against the Golden Lions in a season which had seen him edge ahead of Louis Schreuder both at Super Rugby level where he started 12 of 16 games in a tough campaign and also domestically where he started 7 of 9 games and scored 1 try in the process.

He signed a contract to join English Premiership side Northampton Saints at the end of the 2016 Super Rugby season and has since become a regular started for the Midlands side.^[1]

Groom has been a regular feature in the Saints' starting side and was instrumental in them securing European Champions Cup rugby for the 2017/18 season, featuring heavily in both the European Champions Cup play-off games where Saints saw off both Connacht Rugby and Stade Francais to secure their spot in the competition for the following season.^[2] On 3 April 2018, it was announced that Groom would leave Northampton with immediate effect to join the Super Rugby team the Lions.^[3]

On 27 June 2019, Groom returned to the UK with Pro14 side Edinburgh in Scotland from the 2019–20 season.^[4] He was released on 22 April 2021^[5] and subsequently signed for Premiership Rugby team London Irish until the end of the 2020–21 season.^[6]

International rugby

On 28 May 2016, Groom was included in a 31-man South Africa squad for their three-test match series against a touring Ireland team.^[7] After training with the national team for a few days, he joined the South Africa 'A' squad for their two-match series against a touring England Saxons team.^[8] He was named in the starting line-up for their first match in Bloemfontein,^[9] but ended on the losing side as the visitors ran out 32–24 winners.^[10]

Super Rugby statistics

As of 9 June 2020

Season	Team	Games	Starts	Sub	Mins	Tries	Points
2011	Stormers	2	0	2	35	0	0	0	0
2012	Stormers	0
2013	Stormers	9	4	5	371	1	5	0	0
2014	Stormers	16	12	4	924	0	0	0	0
2015	Stormers	16	13	3	955	2	10	1	0
2016	Stormers	14	10	4	765	2	10	0	0
2017	In Europe with Northampton Saints
2018	Lions	8	5	3	315	2	10	0	0
2019	Lions	13	7	6	579	1	5	0	0
Total		78	51	27	3949	8	40	1	0