Victory tour:
• People of Zwide hail Bok captain whose rugby career started on a gravel pitch in the township
The people of Port Elizabeth welcome the rugby world champions on Sunday. The city was the fourth leg of a national victory parade tour by the Springboks that began in Pretoria, Johannesburg and Soweto on Thursday.
Rugby World Cup-winning captain Siya Kolisi returned to his SA roots on Sunday, holding the trophy as an open-top bus crawled through the streets of a Port Elizabeth township.
It was in Zwide, 17km north of the city, that the Springbok colossus first handled a rugby ball on a gravel, often windswept school sports field.
Port Elizabeth was the fourth leg of a national victory parade tour that began in Pretoria, Johannesburg and Soweto on Thursday and continued in Durban and East London.
The celebrations of the 32-12 final victory over England in Japan last weekend will conclude on Monday when the team drives through the streets of Cape Town where he plays for the Stormers.
Among those who greeted Kolisi and his teammates on Sunday on a wet, windy day under a slate-grey sky was Eric Songwiqi, a schoolteacher and the first coach of the wouldbe Springbok.
“Siya handled a rugby ball for the first time on a gravel sports field at Emsengeni primary school in Zwide township,” he said. “The boys would hurriedly eat their food during the school break, then ask me for the rugby ball so that they could play.
“I recall Siya being a small boy with thin legs, but strong. He oozed passion whenever he had the ball. I saw this diligent, wellmannered and disciplined boy with great passion and enthusiasm for rugby and I knew he would go far.
“I am not surprised that he captains the Springboks. I could see leadership qualities in him even at the tender age of 12. He was focused.”
Songwiqi said Kolisi, who was born to teenage parents in June 1991, loved rugby more than his schoolbooks.
“You could see the zeal and hunger even though it was on a rough, hard, gravel pitch,” said the coach. “I feel great that my product is doing well and the moment he lifted the William Webb Ellis trophy, I felt that I had played a part in the win.”
Kolisi was spotted at a tournament when only 12 and won a scholarship to an elite Port Elizabeth
school, where his rugby skills were honed.
After representing SA at Under-20 level, he joined the Stormers and made his Springbok debut six years ago against Scotland in Nelspruit.
In 2018, coach Rassie Erasmus took over a Springbok squad that had become an embarrassment, especially after a first loss to European rugby minnows Italy.
Among his first decisions was to make loose forward Kolisi the first black Test captain of the Springboks after 60 whites had skippered a team that excluded black players for 90 years.
The move appeared to have backfired when visiting England raced to a 21-point lead in Johannesburg in the first match of a three-Test series. But Kolisi and his teammates did not panic, clawed back into contention with a string of tries and won a thriller 42-39.
The Boks won seven internationals and lost seven in 2018, but the groundwork had been laid for a dramatic improvement in 2019. An ultimately convincing victory over prematch favourites England in the World
Cup final was the 10th in 12 matches this season.
Travelling to Port Elizabeth also marked a homecoming for coach Erasmus, who turned 47 this week. He was born in Despatch, 30km northwest of Port Elizabeth.
Meanwhile, loose forward Francois Louw has become the second member of the Springbok squad to officially announce his retirement, after legendary prop Tendai “Beast” Mtawarira. Known as “Flo”, the 34-year-old based in England was capped 76 times and came off the bench in the final.