Barbarians Storm Cape Town
On Invitational Rugby, Sporting Traditions, and the Famous Black-and-White Jersey
Written while shivering through a raw and rainy Cape Town winter evening with Beverly Hills Cop in the background.
On Saturday the Springboks open their 2025 season against the legendary Barbarians invitational side at DHL Stadium in Cape Town. Although the match does not count as an official test match, every rugby player wants to play in a Barbarians match, either wearing their legendary black-and-white hooped jersey or lining up across from them. It is an honor to be chosen to be a Barbarian and it is an honor to take the field with them on the other side. Rugby is a game that values tradition, and the Barbarians represent one of the great traditions in the sport.
The Barbarians, affectionately known as the “Baa Baas,” began in 1890 and have played semi-regularly as a so-called “scratch side,” which is to say, they are pulled together from scratch. They are not a pre-existing team. They do not even have a home stadium, clubhouse, or other facilities. They originated in the UK and for most of their early years they played other club teams until they first took on Wales in 1915. In 1948 they played Australia, and from there they gathered regularly as a new squad in any given year.
The team is based on tradition. Players wear the black-and-white kit but wear their own club socks. They play with at least one uncapped player each match with players otherwise a mix of experienced veterans, many of whom use their Barbarians time as their last in uniform — with some players coming out of recent retirement to play for them. Over the history of the Barbarians they have had representatives from more than 30 countries, and when they play a national side there are decent odds that a fellow countryman (and now woman — the Barbarians women played their first match against an international side in 2019 — that first match of several that year was a narrow viictory over the US Women) will be lined up on the other side. A number of the greatest Springboks have appeared for the Barbarians, for example, including Schalk Burger and Bryan Habana, Beast Mtawarira, Victor Matfield, and some 126 others.
But perhaps the greatest tradition, and certainly one of the most fun for fans, is the Barbarian commitment to playing a free-flowing, running, go-for-broke style. The Barbarians’ social media people have been on fire this week and much of that has been connected to the idea that the Baa Baas would just as soon avoid the legendary Springbok set pieces, especially the scrums. The typical winter conditions in Cape Town this week have most experts asserting that ball-in-hand play will be tough and that will be to the disadvantage of the Barbarian flow, but DHL Stadium is an elite international venue with solid drainage and maintenance and I suspect that however relatively wet and slow the field might be, the Barbarians will play the way they play because that’s what they do.
The 2025 Boks make their first appearance (of 14) this year against the Baa Baas. The thirteen tests will include the usual Rugby Championship* matches against Australia, Argentina, and of course New Zealand’s All Blacks for the Southern Hemispheric championship. The Boks will end the year with a European tour that will include two titanic matchups against France and Ireland as well as Italy and Wales. Meanwhile the home matches in this first half of the season, most of which I will be attending in my writerly guise, includes two Italy matches and one against Georgia before they start The Rugby Championship at home with two matches against Australia. The Boks are already gearing up for the 2027 World Cup in Australia and so they will be doing a lot of mixing of veterans and new players. On Saturday captain Siya Kolisi will lead out a mix of veterans and players getting their first run in the green and gold even if the match does not qualify as a test. But my guess is that the relatively soft early test schedule will see those same youngsters and a number of others experience proper test rugby in the weeks to come. Some of these players will be a part of the 2027 setup. Some, rookies and vets alike, will not be. Bok coach and Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus knows what he’s doing when it comes to World Cup preparation. This much he has proven.
So what is my prediction for this match? It will certainly be sloppy both because of the conditions and because it is the opener and things will not yet be clicking. I suspect that both sides will be happy to run, but the Boks will do so only within reason — they are preparing for a proper rugby season and that means they want their forward platform to be firing from the outset. The Barbarians can joke about the scrums and the mauls from lineouts. The Boks will not, I assure you, be joking. I have a tendency to predict higher scores than I usually get — call it wishful thinking, as I very much love free-flowing, running rugby. With that in mind, and knowing that the Boks have a losing record all-time against the Barbarians (they have played eight times, the Boks winning three, losing four, and drawing one) I’m going to go with 26-19, Bokke.
I’ll be covering Saturday’s match in DHL Stadium (aka Cape Town Stadium). I’ve actually only been inside the stadium twice. I was here during the 2010 World Cup but did not attend any matches here. I have seen a Cape Town City Premier Soccer League match in the stadium, and it was seemingly empty, a couple thousand people not making much difference in a 58,000+ seat stadium. I was here in 2021 for the three British and Irish Lions matches, but they limited media slots severely and allowed no fans in the stadium, so I watched from a nearby pub or from my flat. In 2022 I was in attendance as a fan for the United Rugby Championship Finals, which was a local derby pitting the Blue Bulls from Pretoria against the home Stormers, who play their home games there. The Stormers won that match in a hard fought battle. Otherwise, my Cape Town rugby experiences have been at at the late, great, legendary, and much lamented Newlands Stadium where I saw a number of Stormers/Western Province matches. This will thus be my first live Springbok match in Cape Town, and I am excited to see what the media centre is like given that the old Green Point Stadium was effectively rebuilt for 2010 to meet FIFA standards, which includes FIFA media expectations. I’m staying in Sea Point, about a two-mile walk from the stadium and plan to meander my way down there on Saturday and to settle in early. (The fan in me also plans to pick up a Barbarians jersey that I will surreptitiously stuff in my bag in order to maintain professional appearances!) I plan to file a match report that will be less about the play on the pitch and more of a what-it-all-means kind of piece. I also am working to freelance articles about the match and my time covering the Boks here if I can get anyone to bite.
Perhaps confusingly, The Rugby Championship and the United Rugby Championship are two different rugby competitions. The Rugby Championships pits the four great southern hemisphere national sides, South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, and Australia against one another in the hemisphere’s equivalent to the Six Nations. It bears repeating that the three former Tri-Nations sides (South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia) have won all but one of the Rugby World Cups. The United Rugby Championship is a Europe-based professional club league involving teams from Wales, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and since 2017, South Africa. The URC used to be the old Celtic League, then it was the Pro 12 and Pro 14 before it becaame the URC.