Siya Kolisi issues rallying call to supporters ahead of ‘special’ women’s Test

Springboks captain Siya Kolisi has urged supporters to flock to FNB Stadium for the Springbok Women’s match with the Black Ferns.

This weekend, South Africa’s biggest stadium will see the Springbok Women and the six-time world champion Black Ferns go toe-to-toe for just the third time. Ever. The fixture will also be the curtain-raiser to the third Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry.

To date, the Springbok Women and Black Ferns have played each other just twice. The last of those encounters came just shy of a year ago in a Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 quarter-final in Exeter.

At half-time of South Africa’s maiden knockout game in the competition, the scoreboard read 10-10. The thousands at Sandy Park were left stunned. The Black Ferns were too.

The Springbok Women had come to play. They confounded the Black Ferns with their power game and 15-woman lineout mauls.

But while that first-half performance got tongues wagging, the Springbok Women could not back it up in the second half. The Black Ferns won 46-17. Dream over.

“It’s special,” Kolisi said on Friday. “It’s exciting. It’s been really awesome seeing how excited the girls are to be playing tomorrow, and seeing how the Black Ferns have been enjoying South Africa too.

“I hope people go before the game, because the Black Ferns have won the World Cup. They’ve been a successful team for a very long time. It will be a great game of rugby.

“Babalwa [Latsha, Springbok Women captain] is really looking forward to the game. The more people support the women’s game, the bigger our sport grows. I always look at it that way. It is not only the women’s game that grows, our game grows.”

Over the years Kolisi has been a staunch supporter of women’s rugby. He was a regular at WXV 2 in 2024, which was hosted in Cape Town. The two-time Rugby World Cup-winning captain attended numerous fixtures, but his support ran deeper than that.

After Wales prop Sisilia Tuipulotu reached out on social media, he spoke to the Wales squad in their team hotel. Later, he joined the Wallaroos at their jersey presentation. During that tournament the flanker even helped out at Springbok Women training.

As things stand, the men’s contest is finely balanced in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry. After Test matches in Johannesburg and Cape Town, the series is level at 1-1 after Kolisi and his Bok teammates picked up a 33-26 win at DHL Stadium.

After this weekend’s contest, the All Blacks and Springboks will travel to Baltimore and play one another in a fourth Test at M&T Bank Stadium.