By Fits and Starts

On the State of Women's Sport in South Africa

Written at Loftus Versfeld Stadium during the South Africa-Canada Women’s Test Match.

There is a rugby doubleheader going on, and even the thousands of fans beginning to congregate at legendary Loftus Versfeld Stadium for this evening’s Springbok-Italy match are unaware of it. I know this not only because I am in a pretty much empty stadium right now, but because (proper journalism!) I asked people last night at the hotel that usually hosts the Boks but that this year just hosts the support staff (The Boks, men and women, stayed in Joburg last night. No breakfasts or random elevator encounters with the Boks for me, unlike the last two years in Pretoria). Every single person I spoke to who was not working todays games had no idea that the Springbok Women were to take on Canada’s women (ranked #2 in the world right now) in a warmup match for the Women’s Rugby World Cup that kicks off in August.

This is not supposed to be much of a match. Unlike the Springbok men, who are ranked first in the world and are the two-time defending world champions, the Springbok women are ranked 12th in the world in a sport where there is not that much depth, especially on the women’s side. It is 26-3 at the half and Canada is clearly leaps and bounds ahead of the South African women, who are game but as of now overmatched.

For as much passion as there is for men’s sport in South Africa, women’s team sports, especially the Big Three of soccer, rugby, and cricket, lag well behind. When I was in college there was both a men’s and a women’s rugby team. They were very much recreational, but had passionate participants in what amounted to a drinking club with a rugby problem (that was probably one of their slogans). But they were there, and the women’s club was popular. Almost every elite private school in the US has rugby clubs, and especially with the rise of Rugby 7s, some are halfway decent.

By way of comparison, when I played rugby at Rhodes University here in South Africa (Rhodes is still my South African academic home) I had never seen a rugby match, never mind played, when I started in my first game against King William’s Town in 1997, but I knew how massive rugby was. In preparation for coming here I did a project on the Springboks and I quickly got into the rhythm of being a fan. But Rhodes did not even have a women’s rugby team. Consider that — my little Division 3 college in Massachusetts, in a country with no rugby culture to speak of, had a long-standing women’s club that played other colleges. My university in 1997 in a country with the defending rugby world champions where high school rugby was and is televised had no women’s rugby team. And there was no Springbok women’s rugby.

There would not be Springbok women’s test rugby until 2004. They are the defending women’s continental champions, but that too is revelatory — the Springbok men don’t bother playing at the continental level, and are not expected to — it would be a waste of time for all involved and incredibly dangerous for the opposition to boot. It would be a Super Bowl champion playing a college team. The Springbok men are firmly entrenched in global rugby, only playing Kenya in sevens and almost never playing the closest thing to another good team in rugby union on the continent, Namibia, unless they meet in World Cup play. The Springbok women, meanwhile, still play Mozambique and Zimbabwe and Botswana in contenental competition.

At the same time, South Africa’s men’s soccer team, Bafana Bafana (“The Boys”), were the defending African champions (they won Afcon in 1996) and while I was there in 1997 they qualified for the 1998 World Cup. The women’s national team had just started in 1993. Similarly, South Africa was one of the leading nations in men’s cricket. The women’s cricket team barely existed, and played its first One Day International during my first year here. Similarly Rhodes did not have a women’s cricket team and I do not believe they had a women’s soccer team. Women were largely restricted to individual events and gendered team sports, with the biggest of these being netball, a British colonial bastardization of basketball, basically.

By far the biggest leap in women’s sport in South Africa has been with the women’s national soccer team, Banyana Banyana (“The Girls”). They are the defending African Women’s champions, and they begin their defense of that title on Monday. Desiree Ellis is the head coach and she was a player on that first Banyana national team. She is also one of the most successful national team sport coaches in the country. In addition to winning Wafcon in 2022, Banyana advanced to the knockout rounds of the 2023 World Cup and will be favored to go deep in this year’s continental tournament.

But Banyana also reveals just how far the country has to go in anything resembling equitable treatment. On the eve of the 2023 World Cup the players went on strike and were going to refuse to get on the planes for Australia. The main issue was that they had not received promised bonuses and other guaranteed pay. On top of that, in the days and weeks leading up to the World Cup they had been forced to play inferior competition in shoddy facilities that did not come close to meeting FIFA standards, disrespect that the men’s side, which hadn’t won or even qualified for anything significant in ages, would never have faced.

Events this past week have revealed just how little has changed. On the eve of their departure for Morocco, once again host of WAFCON as in 2022, Banyana’s women laid down tools once more, because again the South African Football Association (SAFA) had not paid them long-promised bonuses and wages. Soccer is by far the most popular sport in the country, despite the success of the Springboks, and the country famously hosted the World Cup in 2010. SAFA should be swimming in money. And yet corruption and mismanagement means that SAFA often claims poverty. But they seem to do so a lot more with their incredibly successful women’s national side. Indeed, Sasol, a giant South African chemical and energy company, is one of the main sponsors of SAFA, and this week they basically told the governing body to get it together, start showing real financial accountability, and especially to pay the women. Or else. Withdrawal of major sponsorship could be a death blow. And at this rate it would be tragic for South African soccer, but probably just desserts for the South African Football Association.

As I’ve been writing the second half kicked off and the Springbok women fought hard, scoring a lovely try on a line break that led to a lovely offload from a loose forward and then a spectacular try from the wing but Canada responded within a minute with a try of their own. South Africa has subsequently scored two more nice tries, the latest off of a maul that looked an awful lot like what the men’s Boks like to do off of set pieces with players like Malcolm Marx. They showed flashes of what Springbok women’s rugby could be. The end result was 50-20 (with the South Africans actually outscoring the heavily favored visitors in the second half) and the Bok women acquitted themselves werll against a team that will absolutely be looking to win the World Cup in a few weeks.

I do wonder, incidentally, if using the Springbok logo and nickname doesn’t cast a shadow that the women might not want to escape. For many maintaining the Springbok was already problematic — I wonder if it might not be wise for the women’s side to embrace another identity. But then again, the Springboks are certainly a legacy with which anyone would want to be associated.

It’s a bit absurd that the Springbok women are such an afterthought in women’s world rugby, but it also reveals a real opportunity for growth. I’ll also note that women’s sides in those “Big Three” South African team sports have not had the same troubles with transformation — when you’re starting from scratch, it turns out the racial composition of teams pretty naturally reflects wider society. Indeed, perhaps tellingly, the national netball federation, with roots in apartheid, has struggled with transformation.

The press conference was sparsely attended — I believe there were five of us who went down to interview Swys de Bruin, the coach, Nolusindiso Booi, the Captain and lock, and Nadine Roos, who started at fullback and switched to scrumhalf in one of several halftime adjustments that made a real difference. When we got back to the media centre, still more than an hour before kickoff of the Springbok-Italy match, there were dozens milling about. That seems to embody the problem pretty well — sports media members who can’t be bothered to go down a level on a lift and walk down a hallway to do the work to highlight the women’s national rugby team. Coach de Bruin seems genuinely heartened by the performance, noting that the last time they played Canada it was a 66-7 blowout. He does not believe that the score is what ultimately matters as they build up to the World Cup — it is the performances and improvement that he wants to see. He also indicated a real sense of committment from SA Rugby, which is good to hear. Roos was one of the stars of the game, and the energy her shift from 15 to 9 provided was clear alnost immediately. She wants to do whatever to help the team, but certainly indicated that she liked being closer to the action and her coach did not disagree. Booi discussed dealing with pressure and how matches like this really help on that front. I chatted with de Bruin a bit longer after the presser and he indicated that one of the dilemmas he faces is that if he emphasizes the set piece, they don’t flow as freely, like they did in the second half, but that they run the risk of not being able to flow freely without having established that set piece forward play. He also indulged a question during the press conference about halftime adjustments and how coaches conceptualize that evergreen that fans and talking heads love to emphasize. Most of these adjustments were pre-planned, which to me shows a certain vision and willingness to implement and stick to a plan but to build in flexibility.

I’m glad that the Springbok women were able to get to play in this doubleheader even if it was largely overlooked as Loftus starts to fill up and the festival atmosphere starts to kick in. (The elevator to the media centre also takes people to a VIP lounge, and a large group got on with me and they were already deep into celebratory mode.) I hope Banyana gets paid and gives themselves the best shot at repeating as Wafcon champs. And I hope in both cases they build on these successes so that in a few years they play to full stadiums and are competing for their own World Championships. But I really hope that they provide inspiration for young girls to go out and play, to throw and kick a ball around.