THE SECRET PLAYER
Our f ormer pr o pr ovides a unique insight into the
YOU KNOW you’re playing against more than a rugby team when you face the Springboks. It’s hard to describe. New Zealand is a rugby nation but with South Africa it feels like more than that.
Consider the type of people they are. Proud, loud, abrasive, aggressive… You’re basically getting a pumped-up version of rugby. Athletes who are huge, physical and stern – and arrogant in some ways. They want to tee off on you like Bryson DeChambeau after a lifetime in his home gym.
Those rugby types are direct, even verging on rude. But it’s just who they are: confrontational. And that reflects in the way that they play rugby. It’s those horrible exchanges that let a few of their flying stars like Cheslin Kolbe and Makazole Mapimpi shine.
If you’ve played the Springboks you will have flashbacks of blitzes, bodies smashing into each other everywhere. Think back to crazed Schalk Burger and players like that. Now you’ve got Siya Kolisi and Pieter-Steph du Toit leading from the front, exploding into collisions. For better or worse, that’s what they love.
Sometimes I think physicality comes first before technical work, but they have some of the best athletes in world rugby and when you get a bunch of them thundering together, buckle up. They are there to beat you up, lad.
The South Africans that I’ve played with are lovely people, although definitely more direct than stars from other countries. Understandably so. Where they come from, it’s a much more pressurised environment. That’s purely based on the volume of kids who play the sport at a high level of school.
It’s like BattleRoyale. It’s this pressure cooker for schooling – they already have a strong S&C culture at that age and from what I am told, there’s a lot of expectation from parents. There is such prestige around being a rugby player there, and being a Springbok, that the pressure pours on. I just don’t think that’s the same in the UK or Ireland, or for that matter for ambitious Aussie kids, or even for the rugby-loving Kiwis.
When you play with these guys for a club, they are so forthright, they all want to lead from the front. Which is great, but I’ve always been fascinated about how that works when there are 40 of them. Does it not get tedious?
There’s obviously natural selection. Caps give you a different level of respect within teams. The Springboks shouldn’t work but in their environments they’re very respectful and it just does.
It is huge that if they choose to, the Springboks can lead their country through difficult times. They’re an inspiration for the public, Look at the job Bryan Habana or Chester Williams did blazing a trail. Now look at that South Africa team of today – they are probably a truer reflection of their society and they can inspire hope in a country where there are a lot of problems.
To pull that off as a team, you need an incredible work ethic to underpin it all. Their team has massively changed in terms of personnel over the last five years but it doesn’t matter which franchise they have all come from, they’ve sort of banded together.
As for the fans, they are definitely loud and proud.
When you play a Test in South Africa, those same fans have likely enjoyed some beer or wine before the game and there is no doubt they will be barbecuing and tailgating out the back. It is awesome. In South African stadiums, the smell of braai – which they do better than anybody else – wafts around the place and makes it really hard to concentrate during warm-ups!
I’ve got memories of playing a Test match in Durban and the whole experience was just insane. That was before a ball was even kicked. And once the game starts going, you can definitely hear them support the team. Whether or not they are inebriated, you can sense the passion radiating from the stands for their team.
And then their players try to crush you…
“The Springboks shouldn’t work but in their environment it just does”