TRAILBLAZER CANTWELL IS LEADING SPRINGBOK REVOLUTION

is amateur and playing numbers are considerably lower.

The demographic is different from the Springbok men too.

“80 to 90 per cent of the girls are black African players. That’s a very different to the men’s game, which previously would’ve been more white Afrikaners,” she says.

There are many other aspects that Cantwell has had to get to grips with.

“Safety and transport and basic provisions around things like that are important to make sure the girls get to training safe and back safe,” she says.

“There’s lots of female and male differences and then there’s the developmental age difference. The women’s game is only 20 years old in South Africa, the men’s game is 140.

“What we said from the get-go is we definitely don’t copy and paste what the men’s programme are doing. It is fundamentally different.”

Players

Many of the players in the women’s game in South Africa come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

And a route from youth level to the national team has not really been mapped out yet, unlike the men’s game.

“A lot of the men’s developmment ment pathway is done in the high schools. It’s a thriving, incredible set-up. The girls don’t have that a at all,” she says.

“There’s a bit of a s tructure there that involves Under-15s, 16s, 17s, but it’s not necessarily in every province and it’s not underpinned by a schools competition o r j unior c lubs competition.

“They’re the type of things we have to undertake.”

The women’s game in Ireland is at a low ebb after the failed bid to qualify for next year’s World Cup, but Cantwell is hoping the tournament can be a springboard for the Springboks.

And the SARU are committed to developing their women’s teams into world beaters.

“In 2019, SARU shifted the women’s game to being the sec