UK writers’ body honours Bok captain Kolisi
SIYA Kolisi struck up a familiar tune when he praised his Springbok teammates instead of claiming all the glory himself after being chosen as the Personality of the Year by the UK Rugby Union Writers’ Club in London on Monday night.
Kolisi’s coach, Rassie Erasmus, and teammate Faf de Klerk were also nominated, as well as Wales captain Alun Wyn Jones and Japan leader Michael Leitch.
The 28-year-old became the second Bok skipper to be handed the Pat Marshall Memorial Award after Francois Pienaar.
“Thank you so much for this. I’m really honoured to be accepting this award. It’s a huge honour and privilege on behalf of myself and obviously my teammates – without them, I wouldn’t have achieved this,” Kolisi said in a video on social media.
“I just want to say, on behalf of
South Africa, I just want to thank you for supporting rugby and supporting us as a country as well. This will mean a lot, especially to the people who have been supporting us all around. It’s good to see that rugby is being recognised and that the game is growing.
“So, thank you for this – it’s not just for me and my teammates in South Africa, but for all the rugby players around the world. Let’s keep on growing the game.”
The chairman of the club, Rob Kitson, wrote in The Guardian that “as anyone familiar with Kolisi’s extraordinary backstory will know, he must be the ultimate example of just how transformative sport can be.
“How many of us would have had the energy, desire, ambition and sheer bloody-mindedness to conquer the world from where Kolisi’s journey commenced?
“Now 28, he grew up in the tough township of Zwide outside Port Elizabeth, raised by his grandmother from the age of 15 after his mother died.
“There was so little money that his favourite childhood toy was a brick; so little food that often he had to train on an empty stomach.”
Kolisi is gearing up for the 2020 Super Rugby season at the Stormers, who will play their final warm-up match against the Sharks at the FNB Stadium on Sunday.
The Stormers’ tournament opener is against the Hurricanes at Newlands on February 1, and the captain wants to make it a memorable final season at the famous old ground.
“We are hoping that the people will just come, and we make this a year of celebration – to give something to people, so that they can say that this last year at Newlands was really amazing.”
Teammate Faf de Klerk
and coach Rassie Erasmus also nominated