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Boks’ Siya Kolisi celebrates after a match.
Siya Kolisi, the greatest Springbok captain of all time, will run out for his 100th Test Cap when he leads South Africa against France at the Stade de France in Paris on Saturday.
Kolisi becomes the ninth Bok test centurion, and coach Rassie Erasmus says it is Kolisi’s humility that stands out above and beyond all his many achievements.
The Boks will take on a French side, still stewing from their World Cup quarter-final loss to South Africa two years ago. And revenge has been all the talk in the French Capital leading up to the match.
Kolisi, the kid from Zwide township, became the first black rugby player to captain the Springboks.
Kolisi is the greatest Springbok captain to don the Green and Gold. With 67 tests as captain and a 71. 2 percent win, Kolisi has raised the Webb Ellis Trophy twice pushing him into the realm of one of the great leaders. But his humbleness is what strikes his coach the most.
“It is just his way to stay humble when there is photographs been taken at the airport or wherever he is always the guy that still goes there even though we are on our way to a flight or we are late to a meeting or we must get into the lift to a team meeting and he might be a minute or two late. I think whenever he gets a chance he tries to connect with South Africans because he understands what South Africa is about and he has been on the tough side of being a South African,” says Erasmus.
Kolisi leads a full-strength Bok team that is determined to beat France again and weather the inevitable Gallic storm that is brewing.
The World Cup quarterfinal loss to the Boks lives rent free in the minds of the French team and Bok scrumhalf, Cobus Reinach says it does not take a genius to realise what is waiting for the Green and Gold at the French National Stadium on Saturday night.
“We know they are going to come physically for us and we have to be ready for that, it is not rocket science what is going to happen out there, it is going to be a huge battle,” says Reinach.
For the Springboks to properly acknowledge the contribution that Kolisi has made to rugby in South Africa, Erasmus says his side needs to focus fully on the game and get the win.
