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'Siya got hit in the mouth at school and was bleeding... I just remember him bouncing guys and carrying on'
On a crisp Port Elizabeth morning, 14-year-old Mike Willemse stood gawping pitchside, utterly transfixed by a schoolboy monster, claret gushing from his face and fury burning in his eyes.
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As a junior pupil at the storied Grey High, Willemse was expected to brandish the school flag and roar on the older students in their ferociously contested matches.
South African schools rugby is a ruthless proving ground. Enormous teenage specimens, not all of them purely the product of extreme toil and fortunate genetics, lock horns on paddocks as hard as granite against the backdrop of unyielding pride and tradition that dates back decades.
There was one boy who stood above them all for Willemse. It was on that morning that the young hooker first laid eyes on Siya Kolisi, the snarling township urchin who would become a World Cup-winning captain.
Kolisi was not yet 17, but already there was an avalanche of hype building around this back row phenomenon. The kid was a colossus, a schoolboy encased in the body of a giant.
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“Siya was captain of the under-16 As and he got hit in the mouth and he was bleeding,” Willemse told RugbyPass. “I just remember him grabbing the ball and not even caring, bouncing guys and carrying on.
“He completely dominated, brushing through players like they weren’t even there. He’d come on for the last 15 minutes to win games for us. Honestly, we’d have people from other schools coming to watch our games instead of their own teams just because of Siya. He was incredible.”
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Since the Springboks’ glorious triumph in Japan, the astonishing story of Kolisi has been told and retold. The flanker had been reared in obscene poverty, left school aged 10 to look after his ailing grandmother, suffered the most heinous bereavements and spoke not a word of English before winning a bursary to study and play at Grey.
? Kolisi: "We won the Webb Ellis Cup for ordinary South Africans and to be able to present the trophy to them, has been phenomenal.”
? https://t.co/fEpU3212pT#ChampionsTogether pic.twitter.com/eDt5OYR8O0
— Springboks (@Springboks) November 11, 2019
His impact, even in those days, went well beyond what he did on the pitch. “Because he had played and done so well for so long, the whole school respected him,” explained Willemse. “He was a prefect, house captain and whatnot.
“And also just being a player of colour of that stature at that time was very inspiring for a lot of people. The way he did things was inspiring for everyone. Through that, he gained so much respect and he handled it well. That’s why he was a leader.
“Everyone was in awe of him. He was a seriously good player and a natural-born leader from the get-go. He made his first-team debut at grade ten, so he was playing three years above his age. You don’t often hear of that in South African schools rugby.
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South Africa captain Siya Kolisi gave an incredible speech in Cape Town today! #rugbyworldcup2019
“The way he dominated the schoolboy rugby scene is what people talk about sometimes more than how he is playing now. He was probably the best schoolboy rugby player anyone had ever seen.
“I only really got to know him very well after school because at school you stay in your age groups. He was my dorm prefect and often you don’t really build a tight connection with your prefect. They instil discipline and that is what he did very well.”
After their school days, Willemse and Kolisi played together with the Stormers and became close friends. The Edinburgh hooker has heaps of mates in Kolisi’s group of immortals. In his days at Newlands and with the Southern Kings, he played alongside Steven Kitshoff, Makazole Mapimpi, Duane Vermeulen, Bongi Mbonambi, Cheslin Kolbe, Lukhanyo Am and a pile more besides.
The answer that so many online rugby fans have been seeking… exactly what has happened to the lid of the Webb Ellis Cup on the Springboks' trophy tour?https://t.co/21IMWKJcnI
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 12, 2019
On the morning of the World Cup final, Edinburgh were in Treviso preparing for a PRO14 match against Benetton. That didn’t stop the hulking South African contingent threatening to reduce the team hotel to rubble as the hammering unfolded – not least because their coach, Richard Cockerill, is typecast as the very depiction of the pugnacious Englishman.
“They thought after the All Blacks game they had already won it. But the whole of South Africa just had a quiet confidence about us,” said Willemse.
“It was life-changing for them and for SA as a whole. What Rassie Erasmus has done and the way the players have bought into what he was trying to do was seriously special. You can see the determination to stick to that plan and do damage with it.”
Pure joy for the @Springboks as they become the first team to win a Rugby World Cup after losing a match in the pool stages#ENGvRSA #RWC2019 #RWCFinal pic.twitter.com/tjORyicbCQ
— Rugby World Cup (@rugbyworldcup) November 2, 2019
Compared to the horrors of Kolisi’s upbringing, Willemse has not seen true hardship. But in a pure rugby sense, he has known extreme deprivation. For four seasons, some as captain, he grafted for the Kings, a team hopelessly handicapped by its meagre budget, ramshackle infrastructure and the bruising annual poaching of its top assets.
After being booted out of Super Rugby in 2017, they and the Cheetahs found a home in the PRO14. The Kings have won only four games out of 48 since.
In Willemse’s time, they had few of the modern tools that professional teams regard as a given – no GPS units, and only a handful of backroom staff. During pre-season, their search for a new head coach became so compromised by leaks, controversy and unseemly public malcontent that it had to be aborted.
Thanks for everything @SouthernKingsSA been a massive privilege over the last couple years ? #onelastone https://t.co/eXhJylccnZ
— Michael Willemse (@MikeyWillemse_2) April 26, 2019
“The scary thing about it is that because you know you don’t have the gear and the support staff all of the teams over here do, the minute something goes wrong, it’s so easy to look for excuses,” explained Willemse.
“It was so easy to look elsewhere and not at ourselves. We were almost mentally oppressed. As much as we were saying we could do it, I don’t think we really believed we could. That was the biggest struggle.
“You’re losing games week in, week out. It’s tough to try and get guys up for it. You’ve got to take it down a whole lot of levels and look at the smaller things and be positive about things you did well on the field.”
There were no chartered planes for the Kings squad on their tours of the north. In fact, the travel itineraries often read like extracts from Christopher Columbus’ diary, leaving players stiff and exhausted on the eve of matches.
“You’re leaving on the Tuesday to play on the Saturday, flying from Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg, Johannesburg to Istanbul, Istanbul to Heathrow, and from there you’re either flying to Scotland or Ireland or bussing it to Wales.
“You couldn’t train the next day. You almost lost three or four days of training. We’d have a captain’s run to try and freshen up and then you have got to play. I don’t care what you say, you can’t be as physically up for it in those circumstances all the time.
Sometimes victory will take a while, but it'll come?
Fantastic stuff @SouthernKingsSA!!!#GuinnessPRO14 pic.twitter.com/O79ITReU3X
— PRO14 RUGBY (@PRO14Official) November 11, 2019
“We tried as best as we could, we tried to get decent enough hotels with pools and saunas to make an effort with recovery, but you can only do so much before fatigue sets in. A lot of our games we were up for it in the first half and come the last 40 we were completely off our feet.”
Willemse is better for the chaos he endured but grateful that it is now behind him. In Edinburgh, the hooker has joined a cleverly assembled squad with a mountain of depth and designs on the PRO14 play-offs.
After winning four of their first six league matches, they begin their European Challenge Cup voyage in Agen this Friday, before Bordeaux-Begles come to Murrayfield a week later. The fact that Edinburgh are competing in the second tier having scalped Montpellier and Toulon and reached the giddying heights of the Champions Cup quarter-finals last season is a trifle embarrassing.
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But the group Cockerill has built this time around is far better equipped to compete on two fronts. With Matt Scott and Mark Bennett fit and flourishing in midfield, Edinburgh are finding extra gears in attack, the pack is rumbling around with its typical venom, and the World Cup contingent are being steadily filtered back into contention.
“Edinburgh weren’t as attack-minded last year as they are now. There’s real excitement about our attack, our counterattack,” Willemse said. “Our backs are really making an impact on the game and we know from previous seasons how good the pack is. That’s what Richard expects and demands from us.
“The pack really grinds a lot harder than anyone else in training and rightly so, because you’re doing a lot more than anyone else on the field.
“We’ve got ourselves in a good position and we’ve yet to reach our full potential. Now that the internationals are making their way back into the team, we’ve created so much depth that it’s really exciting – we can hopefully make a claim to play-offs and go further from there.”
WATCH: RugbyPass Rugby Explorer takes a trek through South African rugby in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth
Comments on RugbyPass
Really hope Kuruvoli and his partner rock the Canes.
1 Go to commentsI wonder what impact Samson has had on their attack, as the team seems less prone to trundle it up the middle, take the tackle and then trundle it up again. I lost faith in the coach last year as the Rebelss looked like a 2nd/3rd rate South African team. I also disliked Gordon standing back, often ignored as the forward battle went on and on. Maybe its our Aussie way of not getting off our A***’s until the enemy is at the gate.
83 Go to commentsThanks for the write up. Great to see the Rebs winning, I am a little interested in how they will go against the remaining kiwi teams, I think they’ve only played Hurricanes and Highlanders but how great to see these players performing!! I also see Parling has a job beyond June 30! A good move by RA? Also how do you fix the Rebels previously scratchy defence?
83 Go to commentsbe smart - go black
13 Go to commentsNext week the Crusaders hopefully have Scott Barrett back. Will be great to have the captain back. Hopefully he will be the All Black captain as well.
12 Go to commentsExciting place to be for the young fella. I expected he was French Polynesian when I saw him included in the France 6N squad (after seeing him in NZs), and therefor be strong grounds we might loose him to rugby down here. Good, in that he is good enough to warrant such a profile, and from a journalism’s fan interaction aspect, to finally get a back ground story on the fella. Hope he has settled into NZ OK and that at least one rugby country will fit with him to help his development, which, if so, he should surely continue for a few years, and then that he can experience France to it’s fullest with a bit more maturity and less reliance on family than you would have at his current age. A good 3 or 4 years before he would be ready for International duty if he wanted to wait. Of course he already sounds good enough to accept a call up, and to cap himself, in the more immediate future (he’d have to be very very good in the case of the ABs), and he’ll get a great taste of that being with the Canes who have a bunch who are just a few years further into their career and looking likely Internationals themselves.
13 Go to commentsI remember towards the end of the original broadcasting deal for Super rugby with Newscorp that there was talk about the competition expanding to improve negotiations for more money - more content, more cash. Professional rugby was still in its infancy then and I held an opposing view that if Super rugby was a truly valuable competition then it should attract more broadcasters to bid for the rights, thereby increasing the value without needing to add more teams and games. Unfortunately since the game turned professional, the tension between club, talent and country has only grown further. I would argue we’re already at a point in time where the present is the future. The only international competitions that matter are 6N, RC and RWC. The inter-hemisphere tours are only developmental for those competitions. The games that increasingly matter more to fans, sponsors and broadcasters are between the clubs. Particularly for European fans, there are multiple competitions to follow your teams fortunes every week. SA is not Europe but competes in a single continental competition, so the travel component will always be an impediment. It was worse in the bloated days of Super rugby when teams traversed between four continents - Africa, America, Asia and Australia. The percentage of players who represent their country is less than 5% of the professional player base, so the sense of sacrifice isn’t as strong a motivation for the rest who are more focused on playing professional rugby and earning as much from their body as they can. Rugby like cricket created the conundrum it’s constantly fighting a losing battle with.
4 Go to commentsOh wow… “But as La Rochelle proved in winning in Cape Town this season, a cross-continental away assignment need not spell the end of days.” La Rochelle actually proved quite the opposite. After traveling to Cape town and back they (back-to-back and current champs) got mercilessly thumped the next week. If travel is not the reason, why else would a full-strength powerhouse like La Rochelle get dumped on their @r$e$ one week later?
26 Go to commentsYou know he can land a winning conversion after the full time siren is up. (Even if it takes two attempts.)
5 Go to commentsA very insightful article from Jake. I would love to know how South African’s feel about their move to Europe. Do you prefer playing in Europe or want to go back to Super Rugby?
4 Go to commentspure fire
1 Go to commentsA very well thought out summary of all the relevant complications…agree with your ”refer the Cricket Test versus 20/20 comparison”. More also definitely doesn't necessarily mean better!
4 Go to commentsMust be something when you are only 19 y.o and both NZ and France want you. Btw he wasn’t the only new caledonian in french U20 as Robin Couly also lived in Noumea until 17. Hope he’s successful wherever he chooses to play.
13 Go to comments“Several key players in the Stade Rochelais squad are in their thirties” South Africans are going to hate the implications of that comment!
5 Go to commentsI know Leinster did a job on La Roche but shortly after HT Leinster were 30-13 ahead of them and at a similar time Toulouse were trailing Exeter. At 60 mins Leinster were 27 ahead but after 67 mins Toulouse were only 19 ahead before Exeter collapsed. That’s heavier scoring by Leinster against the Champions. I think people are looking at Toulouses total a little too much. I also think Northhampton are in with a real chance, albeit I’d put Leinster as favourites. If Leinster make the final I expect them to win by more than ten and with control.
5 Go to commentsHey Nick, your match analysis is decent but the top and tail not so much, a bit more random. For a start there’s a seismic difference in regenerating any club side over a test team. EJ pretty much had to urinate with the appendage he’d been given at test level whereas club success is impacted hugely by the budget. Look no further than Boudjellal’s Toulon project for a perfect example. The set ups at La Rochelle and Leinster are like chalk and cheese and you are correct that Leinster are ahead. Leinster are not just slightly ahead though, they are light years ahead on their plans, with the next gen champions cup team already blooded, seasoned and developing at speed from their time manning the fort in the URC while the cream play CC and tests. They have engineered a strong talent conveyor belt into their system, supported by private money funnelled into a couple of Leinster private schools. The really smart move from Leinster and the IRFU however is maximising the Irish Revenue tax breaks (tax relief on the best 10 years earnings refunded at retirement) to help keep all of their stars in Ireland and happy, while simultaneously funding marquee players consistently. And of course Barrett is the latest example. But in no way is he a “replacement for Henshaw”, he’s only there for one season!!! As for Rob Baxter, the best advice you can give him is to start lobbying Parliament and HMRC for a similar state subsidy, but don’t hold your breath… One thing Cullen has been very smart with is his coaching team. Very quickly he realised his need to supplement his skills, there was talk of him exiting after his first couple of years but he was extremely shrewd bringing in Lancaster and now Nienaber. That has worked superbly and added a layer that really has made a tangible difference. Apart from that you were bang on the money… 😉😂
5 Go to commentsNot sure exactly what went wrong for him at Glasgow but it’s pretty clear he ain’t Franco’s cup of tea. Suspect he would have been better served heading out of Scotland around the same time as Finn, Hoggy and Jonny!
1 Go to commentsBulls disrespected the Northampton supporters and the competition. Decide quickly, fully in or out.
26 Go to commentsI wonder if Parling was ever on England’s radar as a coach? Obviously Borthwick is a great lineout coach, but I do worry he might be taking on too much as both head coach and forwards coach.
1 Go to commentsJason Jenkins has one cap. When Etzebeth was his age he had over 80 caps. Experience matters. He will never amount to what Etzebeth has because he hasn’t been developed as an international player.
2 Go to comments