Libbie Janse van Rensburg will stop you in your tracks. In a good way | Loose Pass Podcast

This is the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast, only on Megaphone Rugby. Welcome back to the Loose Pass, and this week's, I always said something special, but man, this is really special. Hugh Griffin has been nagging me for weeks and months, actually, since last year's World Cup, to speak to Libby Janssen van Reensburg. And lo and behold, here she is today. Welcome.

Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, absolutely welcome. I've been nagging him to speak to more women's spring box, and every time he's like, well, who do you want to speak to? I'm like, Libby, I want to speak to Libby. so we finally got you it feels like the end of the quest but we're not only speaking to an international rugby player international springbok fly half we're also now speaking to a professional podcaster libby now you know who the real heroes are no definitely uh trying something new trying something to keep us busy off field and um hopefully we can get some traction off it and create just more awareness about around women's rugby and what it is that we do and what life is life for a woman's rugby player yeah i watched your first episode and the way that you spoke about stuff you know it's something that comes up a lot when i talk to either women's rugby players or people who speak to women's rugby players a lot it's like oh there's so much more real than men's players and like you guys when you were talking about it in your podcast you talked about like you spent ages in the first episode talking about being dropped i was like you never hear players talking about this i found it so like you're not worried that you're going to get in trouble at some point with this podcast no look we definitely um still watching exactly what we are going to expose and what we want to talk about so we we are careful but i think for now we just want to be real with people we want people to know you know like i say what it is like being a women's rugby player without obviously getting ourselves into too much hot water well we're going to talk in this podcast now that we've done the the formal bit of it talking about the most important thing which is you're a youtuber now uh we're going to talk about yourself we're going to talk about your career with the Bulls Daisies and of course we're going to talk about the Spring Box but the first thing that I kind of want to say is we're not only saying welcome Libby we're also saying congratulations champion once again with the Bulls Daisies lifting the Super League title how was the season for you?

Yeah it's been a great season I mean I think it just goes to show the professional setup that we have at the Bulls Daisies is something that is lacking across the country I mean for us to take the title four years in a row now you know there's no teams that are really coming close to putting up that great fight that you want to see in a final, you know, where you see a score where a team wins by one or by a penalty kick in the end. You know, that's what we want in women's rugby to promote the game better. And I think the other unions are just lacking a little bit. But for myself, it's amazing. I mean, riding the high the whole time, going in there, knowing what's expected of us.

Everyone on the field knows their jobs, the coaches back us they trust us to you know experiment a little bit as well um but you're walking away with another title is just absolutely incredible yeah it's something that you kind of talked about in your podcast and i noticed you got really kind of worked up when you were talking about it's just how hard that you work and how much effort that you have to put in 24 7 to what you do even when you're in such a successful team as the bulls that seems like something that really you know you hold in in your core that you are one of the hardest working people in rugby no definitely i think i always tell people like my word of advice is work hard um talent beats hard work and although you know i might be blessed with certain skills with certain talents that just naturally came to me as you know from from a young age the hard work is what got me to where i am today i would not be a springbok rugby player or a professional rugby player if i didn't put in countless hours on the field there's so much that people don't know about what i've done to get to where i am today and it's something i'll take a lot of pride in yeah well something that i didn't know was that is it true that your first ever game of 15s playing fly half was your first cap um no so it wasn't my first cap it was my first cap with the bulls um it was in east london a rainy East London. We were playing against the reigning champs that time. So it was massive. I didn't know what I was doing. Looking back on it now, I'm also not sure if fly half would have been the position that I had chose.

Had I had a little bit more knowledge of the game, I would have maybe put myself in a fullback starting just to sort of suss out the game a bit from the back, get my feel of it, whatever. But the coaches that time believed in me. I don't know if it was just because, okay, you can kick, so you play fly off, but that's sort of like how it worked back then. But they put me in there sort of told me a little bit of what to do and i just really winged it to be honest with you and it wasn't i think i maybe played five games of 15s and then i got called up to the spring box and got my first cap it was incredible yeah well that's a whirlwind ride i mean i've heard like other players like if if i reference you know players i've seen interviewed in the men's game like james o'connor he talked about how he got thrown in a fly half and then you know it took him years to learn how to do it how long was it for you before you felt like no this is my position now to be honest with you i think only maybe just prior to the last world cup that i really feel okay this is what i'm going to play i mean a couple of years ago i was still dabbling a bit between fly off fullback i've played a little bit of inside center stages but i couldn't quite you know decide exactly what is the position for me i mean fly off comes with so much pressure and I think being able to handle that pressure, especially as a female player, we are more emotional. It is what it is.

Being able to handle that pressure and sort of hold your own on the field when things are getting tough and everyone's looking at you for answers or what's the next play, just sort of fine tuning that within myself and being able to get to where I am now, where I feel confident in making the decisions. I think back then I was young in the sense that I didn't play a lot of 15s rugby. so my knowledge and the belief in myself to back a decision wasn't there yet uh where i think now i'm just going from strength to strength that i'm really enjoying the space that i'm in now in in my rugby career it's so crazy to hear you talking about like needing to manage the pressure and stuff when you were at the center of one of the most pressure moments in springbok rugby history which i am going to ask you about a bit later on but obviously you came through sevens and a lot of women's rugby players are kind of like the dual coders and stuff i'm curious like do you do you you watch a lot of rugby as 15s you know all growing up did you always watch 15s or was there a point in life where you're only really interested in sevens what was that like for you growing up i didn't really know about sevens my family watched a lot of 15s rugby the sevens sort of only came into my vision when i started studying and i got exposed to sevens and i was like oh this is interesting and then i started watching majority sevens because i thought okay this is what i'm going to put all my attention into. My focus is going to go into the sevens. And as soon as the sevens became an Olympic sport in 2016, I was like, okay, this is going to be the thing that I'm going to gun for.

No matter what it takes, I'm going to make sure that when they send our team, I get myself onto that team. And I remember, you know, in COVID time, when I was training at home in my backyard, the motivation was sevens. I was training for sevens. I was imagining myself on a sevens pitch playing against you know Porsche Woodman a Charlotte classic all of these phenomenal athletes and that was really what what drove me it was only after COVID it looked like my sevens were sort of fizzling out and then the 15s coach at the Bulls contacted me and it was like an overnight thing before I knew it you know I got kept as a springbok and I had to make that shift to the seven so up to the 15 so there wasn't really a lot of time for me to now focus the game of 15s more because when I was watching that as a kid i was just watching it to watch it you know just as a fan you watch it a lot differently when you're an athlete playing the actual sport yeah do you do you still watch a lot of rugby now i'm always curious to hear about this about rugby players about whether you get from home training you get home from training like i do not want to see another rugby ball right now or whether you're like checking the scores always on your phone to be honest with you it's more of a social thing so obviously my mate you know oh we're getting together on a saturday to bri and watch the rugby the rugby is just coincidentally on the the main part is the social aspect of it I think women's rugby more specifically I love to watch it just because I think it's more relatable you know watching competitors competitors and it's also finding the space to watch the rugby and just watch it to enjoy it because I often find myself watching and being like you know analyst brains on looking for space looking for kind of things and that's not really like when watching rugby for the joy of it you don't want to be thinking like that you just want to watch the game be like oh what a great try you don't want to watch it and be like oh this defender wasn't in the right place you know this is what they should have done so it's it's quite like weird when i say okay i'm gonna go watch rugby with my mates just as a social thing i'm very like oh you know the rugby's on there on the side but i'm not really sitting and watching it per se surely that surely if you're with your mates they're asking you about it all the time they're like what what happened there what did what did they do wrong they do and they did a lot in the beginning especially when i just started playing for the spring box but i think my friends have really gotten sort of the understanding of how when i'm away from rugby and with them i don't really want to speak too much about rugby or you know we quickly catch up they ask me you know how was the trip how's the games whatever and then we leave it at that um because they are sort of my my breakaway from rugby they are you know they they need to fill up my cup and to make me feel like a human being again so they're really good at that so i must i must give them credit that's great that sounds like such a fantastic balance and i can tell that you've you've had to kind of be like present and really think about how you approach that and you make that balance work with you who do you love watching at the moment who's your favorite to watch oh to be honest with you just now the fact that the six nations the women's six nations has started is really exciting you know it's high level women's rugby and just to see like the sold-out stadiums that they keep playing against and records keep being broken like it's so incredible to watch it i just i love it yeah i'm as a wales fan you know it could it could be a little bit more incredible you know for me um were you always a bulls fan that's what i'm curious to know yes yes growing up all my my family has always been blue ball supporters you know so it just kind of naturally happened that i ended up at the blue bulls and i'm still at the blue bulls and hopefully i can finish my career and say you know i was also that player that started at the bulls and finished my career at the bulls i mean if all goes well that's what what i would hope for that would be awesome and i'm curious to know with the with the bulls daisies like are they is it like as a team identity is it recognizably balls for people who are used to watching the men's balls so like if everyone was playing in in blank jerseys and we didn't know who was who would we be able to say okay that's the bulls team you know is there is there a fundamental dna there or is it the daisies its own thing you know what i think the days is all a little bit their own brand at the moment i mean you know the men the men's rugby sphere is just so competitive they're all over the place but in south africa when anyone watches any team like you say if they're wearing blank jerseys they will know which team the bulls days is because it's usually the one that's dominating on the field okay all right then and most importantly is the western province hate still there though is it still you check you You check the season like schedule and you're like that game. We must be extra on for that game.

Oh look I never been one to hold grudges or like I know in South African rugby there this heavy battle between Western province stormers and the Bulls it like a thing the whole time for me it just it another game it's a it's a game that I usually look forward to most because I know it's going to be better quality rugby you know the competition is going to be better so of all the games when we get our I'll sheet for the for the year for when we're going to play who I am the most excited to play that game okay that's that that's the answer that mvr wanted to hear he want he wanted to hear that the hate was there because he's he buys into that narrative for sure um okay so i can tell you western province is definitely riding on riding on that competitive battle between province and and gauteng yeah oh this is a one-sided rivalry i know about those we i have one in wales as well um okay so that's kind of the bulls part of the the situation kind of talked about i want to now talk about the spring box so question number one are you fed up of talking about the italy game yet no no i don't think i'll ever get fed up of talking about it it lives rent-free in my mind when i feel a little bit down i just think of that moment i look at the photos like it was such an iconic win for us such a great day no i could never get tired of talking about that game well you say iconic you've you are the proud owner of one of the most iconic lines in springbrook rugby history do people say everything has changed now just at you in the streets they just shout again hey everything has changed now no not in the streets but there are two people that i know that were with us at the world cup that actually got it tattooed on them so shout out to to them uh the real fans the real fans and yeah it just so happened like in the moment you know it's obviously unscripted i was actually in shock and very surprised and there was a lot of emotions going on um but it just worked out so well that that is what happened to come out of my mouth what how long before that game did you guys start thinking about that because the way that the group was you had the game against france that i was at obviously france are at a level and then the in the i think it was was it brazil the other team yeah group and then it was italy so you kind of have one at the top, one lower down, and then one in the middle. At what point was it openly said, like, this is the game, this is our final? Yes. Yes. As soon as the pools were announced, that spark was lit.

We knew going in, okay, we need to put up a great score against Brazil just to sort of counter that point difference if we find ourselves in a position that we need to rely on point differences. and we knew that Italy was the game that we were gunning for and I think Italy felt the same they knew going into that that it was going to be a tough game I mean we met them the year prior to that lost to them it was a difficult game for us and I think they could see the growth that South African women's rugby has been having over the couple of years and I mean they felt us in that game 100 it must be such an exciting environment to be in you know me and my friends when we talk about women's rugby we're always like god south africa the swing box are coming you know and we kind of called it before the tournament because you guys you played your warm-up games against canada and two against the blackburns 15 and you beat the blackburns 15 in the second one and it was kind of like wow okay these this team has you know come from being not so competitive a few years ago to now really on the up and it does feel like the progress is really rapid and you know you guys i think are going to be overtaking some six nations teams soon don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves but going back to the kind of the italy game you guys were leading that game for most of it you were in the lead and then towards the end things got quite tense um when it got to kind of the end and you're on the the trial line for the goal line dropout um when we spoke to eloise webb she said that everybody was shouting at you everyone was and eloise webb was like kick it to me and they're like do this do that do that did you did you have to be like i'm just going to do my own thing right and be honest did what happened was that the plan no so when we got that kick i looked and i could see the space on the right hand side and i first thought if we kick it quickly they're not ready you know we can get the ball back and then we hope for the best from there but as everyone was shouting different things and different things you know it's just chaos italy managed to set i remember eloise telling me and i was like okay well i think if we can get a contestable kick maybe you know because now i'm also thinking do i kick it deep and give them the opportunity to attack onto us? Do I kick it contestable? And maybe, you know, maybe we get something out of it. And I think that Italian girl is just kicking herself every single day for letting that ball drop.

Because I think because it was such a shorter kick, obviously we could put some pressure and she let it bounce and it went out. And that was just the most incredible thing I think that could have come from that situation. because I mean the odds weren't really in our favor then so it just happened to work out for us and I think the rugby gods were just blessing us on that day. 100% when you say people shouting at you how many languages were getting shouted at you because I know that women is like what 12 different languages in that team yeah we have a lot of different languages obviously majority of I speak English to each other and then myself and Afrikaans girls will speak in Afrikaans so it was you know a combination of English Afrikaans you know just there was so much happening to be honest you they could have been shouting in any language and i still wouldn't have really registered who was saying what did did you feel a kind of responsibility because you talked about the fly half and the responsibility on the fly half's shoulders did you feel in that moment as you know i'm okay i'm a senior player i'm wearing the number 10 jersey it's my job to get control of this situation and then how did you kind of process that if that is kind of a cognizant thought that you did have? I think I subconsciously have that in the back of my mind in every game.

Just because I know how pivotal a fly off is for the success of a team. I always joke and say when a team wins, you know, everyone says, Oh, it's great team work, great team play. But when the team loses, it's all the fly off was so bad. So I do have that in the subconscious of my mind. But in the same breath, I want to say I try not to put too much pressure on myself.

And I think I'm very fortunate to be surrounded with a group of players who understand the roles of each individual and they understand the pressure that i'm under so they work really well at not making me feel too overwhelmed in such in certain situations and i think we've also grown a lot as a team in the sense of we know when sort of to say something and when not to say something and how to approach different players on the team you know some players need a firm talking to and other players maybe need a gentler a softer touch if i can say it like that so i think i'm just really lucky to have girls around me that can also see when i'm being flustered and when they can bring me back down and can sort of ride on the energy that i bring to the team um but going into that kick i did know that this was going to come down on whether i kick a good kick or not kick a good kick you know kind of like one of those do or die moments so it was definitely in the back of my mind but i think the moment before i struck the ball it was kind of like i was just like you know what it is what it is the moment the kick goes we're gonna have to either battle it out or you know it just was what it was and i think yeah everything just worked out great twice obviously oh yeah absolutely did and then you went on to play a knockout game against the black ferns and you You were drawing at halftime? Like what was the moment like when you saw the draw and it was the black fans? And didn't you play them on the same day? Was it the Wellington game that the men had as well? It was like, it was crazy kind of crossing over of the universe there.

Yeah, I think at halftime, a lot of us went into the locker rooms and we're just like, huh, okay. I don't think, honestly, I don't think any of us prepared ourselves for that possibility. like we knew we know the black fans are an incredible team they're so strong they're so physical yes we also bring that physicality but we're not oblivious to the fact that we are still in a building phase and we have you know goals for the future Rome wasn't built in a day we can't just go from nothing to like champs in one year so we know the process that we're going to follow but I think in that locker room a lot of us were like okay wow this there's now now there was that little seed of hope planted again um unfortunately it didn't work out for us but i mean still that first half that hope that we got there still lingers within the team now and i think if there's anything that can keep motivating our team it's to say look what we did for 40 minutes against the black ferns we need to push harder so that we can do that again in the next 40 minutes against them yeah but the things that you you do on the pitch as a team is some things that literally i've never seen any other team do like i think in one of the games against the old box 15 in the warm-up you guys went pick and goes from i think your own 10 meter to their try line i was like i have never seen a rugby team do that you talk about the physicality but then in that quarter final what was it it was it was it a midfield lift it was a 15 woman mall as well what's that moment like when women line out yeah what was that moment like when um um is me and mvac all him on this channel when he comes into the room and goes right i've got an idea here's what we're gonna do and he pitches that kind of that kind of thing to you what's that moment like uh to be honest with you when he pitched that idea i was like okay you know obviously i'm not i'm not gonna say to the coach i think this is a bad idea he's obviously if he thinks it's a great idea i'm gonna back it i'm I'm going to do what I can for the team to implement the idea. But to be honest with you, I was like, is this allowed? I don't really know.

I'm not sure. Like, I don't know. Like you say, I've never seen it. No one's ever seen it. And now he's pulling this rabbit out of the hat.

And I was just like, okay, well, if we lose that line out, it's a walkover try for New Zealand. So we need to, for now, buy into this 100%, make sure we get it. And yeah, I think it worked out really well for us. And it's something that's still spoken about today. And I think that's what makes it so exciting.

And what makes it so exciting having a coach like Swayze Debray, you know, with us now. He's got that, like, rusty mentality with him where he figures out what is the strength of the girls within our squad. And he works the game around our strengths. He's not going to say, okay, you know, if we look at the roses or we look at the ferns, this is how they play. And this is where they look great.

Our girls are different. You know, our DNA is different. And I think he really works so well with finding our strengths and using that to our advantage. Yeah. When I had the good fortune to interview him, I asked him about South African DNA and he got really into it and talking about how you're different and how you use all your diversity and things as a strength and come together and stuff like that.

It's so inspiring. something else that was kind of maybe a bit more technical about how you played was the way that you and nadine roos would interchange and stuff on the field and you know who's playing where would change like in the same half and stuff and then go back again who calls that who in charge like who the person saying right okay now this player you stand here i stand here You know how does that work on the field Look Coach Swayze is the mastermind behind everything that we do So whenever he comes to the plan, we are just like, yes, you're the guy. We got this. Just say when, say where. And we just, there's no questions asked.

There's no, oh, but I'm this position, so I should be, you know, standing at first receiver. None of that. We don't really, we don't really care, to be honest with you. I think everyone just wants what's best for the team. And if he says that this is the best person to be in this position for this move, then that's what we go with.

Yeah. And then kind of looking forward to this season, I think your next two games are up against the USA Eagles at home, right? Later this year. Yes, we have Africa Cup coming up, I think, end of May, beginning June. And then we have the Eagles games at home, which is obviously the exciting ones that we're really looking forward to.

i'm really looking forward to those because i mean obviously you're gonna win but i don't know who's gonna win um because it's a really great matchup i think that's really two equal kind of teams they're obviously playing pack four right now and i just i can't call that one i think that's a great step for you guys in your development no definitely i think it's exactly what we need to continue the growth and the momentum that we have now is to play against a team like usa who like you say at the moment we are very evenly matched so we've got two games to to battle it out and to see who's going to take it now and it's really exciting and it's also so exciting that it's happening at home we're going to be playing on loft as one of the games which i'm really excited for you know giving opportunity for my friends and family around to come and support that as well so it's going to be great it's going to be a cracker i cannot wait for it and then are you playing the black ferns as part of the greatest rivalry tour yes we are playing a curtain raiser for one of the men's games against them. I also think that is going to be something so special to be able to play against the Ferns and having the men's greatest rivalry, something that is so iconic in the rugby world to bring those two together. First time we're playing the Black Ferns on South African Swirl as well. So it's going to be just another, you know, historic moment for South African women's rugby in our country. Oh, imagine if you win.

Imagine if you win. Kind of what that makes me think of is you've already done it once. or at least once i guess multiple times what's it like facing a hacker especially the women's hacker as well because look i'm i have no shared experiences with the with the women doing that hacker okay i know that the past of that hacker is like women didn't used to be allowed to do the hacker and stuff and these people have had a lived experience that i've got nothing in common with but even i find the women's hacker incredibly moving when i watch it i find it so much more impactful than the men's one as a player on the pitch what how do you feel when you face that oh i love it i think it's something so special and unique to rugby because we've seen it in the men's like it's such a iconic event that happens to get to get to see the woman do it on the field representing their strength and holding their own on the field it's really really special and you know it makes me kind of like a little bit jealous that we also don't have a thing to do because it's so so cool it's so unique to the black ferns and it's absolutely amazing to see them do it to feel them you don't just see them like you feel the energy coming off of those goals it's something that's special each and every time oh i cannot wait i'm looking forward to it so much so something that you spoke about on your podcast and this is kind of the last question was you talk about having the goals you wanted to get to the olympics you wanted to get to the world cup what's the goal now what's what's the thing what's the background on your phone so the goal now is to get in the green and gold as much as I can. Every single game I'm gunning for a jersey. I think, you know, we have such a long time until the next World Cup and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

But for now, this year, looking at this season specifically, I want to play as much rugby because if there's one thing that I felt coming back from the Women's Rugby World Cup last year is that playing these top level teams for me as a fly-off is just taking my rugby to the next level. And I don't think I've reached my ceiling of what I can do as a fly-off yet. And with that, I need game time. So the more game time I can get under pressure against top teams, the better. Talking about game time, the Bulls days, like you said, the only professional rugby team, women's rugby team in South Africa.

What's the environment there like? I know what it's like for the men's team, but in terms of your professionalism, the coaches and everything else, what's the Bulls set up there? What makes it so successful? compared to others apart from the fact that you're the only professional side i think the thing that makes the bulls days is the most professional the most successful team is just simply the fact that the girls are on the field every single day doing the basic skills um you can see the the difference in skill level just from passing you know tackling contact collisions those kind of things the ladies are doing that every single day so it's not seen as an extra that you need to go home after training and work on your passing because it gets tedious to do these things by yourself so it's a lot different being in a group environment everyone's doing the same thing every day everyone's doing conditioning together i think that's another thing you know we overlook the conditioning it's not nice doing conditioning by yourself but being in a group setting everyone's suffering everyone's motivating each other it just helps the group as a whole to go to the next level together Last year when I was at Loftus, when the issue was announced as a Bulls Daisy sponsor, I met Zanej O'Don, your new coach. Talk to me about her a little bit.

She's also ex-Spinbock, played in the previous World Cup. What did you learn from her? Yes, I mean, obviously Zanej has been a teammate in the past. I think initially we've seen her getting involved in the coaching. And I remember actually speaking to her just before she retired.

And I asked her, you know, what are your plans for the future? And she said, no, she's going to take a little bit of a break from rugby. And I thought, oh, it's actually such a loss because she has so much knowledge that I think she can share. And then to see her, I think she took a break for if it was a year that long. To see her then coming into the coaching sphere was so exciting.

And then obviously having her come to the daisies. I think she has so much knowledge, especially of the struggles that women's rugby players face, which is something that, you know, men don't necessarily know what it was like, especially back then, to be a women's rugby player, and the things that are different when it comes to men and women. So I think just that already made it a little bit easier. And, I mean, she's got such great knowledge of the game. She's got such great vision.

So being able to look to her now as a coach, I mean, I feel like we still have, we still speak to each other the same, but to know that, okay, she's the coach now seeing her in that different light it's really helped the bulls daisies group i think go to just a little bit of a different level in terms of women's sports in south africa it's interesting that you mentioned the struggle because you in the beginning of this conversation you talked about the women's six nations being played in front of full stadiums and like so africa is struggling to get the women's game off off the ground even with the bulls daisies being there a couple of questions right that i can think of from rising from that firstly how did You start playing rugby. I mean, you said one thing, you watched a lot of rugby. Your family was Bull supporters. But to start playing rugby as a girl, I'd say girl because you were a girl then, into Africa, how difficult was that? Where did you start?

I mean, where do people want to play rugby, girls want to play rugby? Where do they go? So I didn't know that women's rugby was a thing. I didn't know that women played rugby anywhere. When I was in school, I started playing touch rugby.

We had a teacher at the school and he told me about touch rugby and how they had like interprovincial tournaments and a SA team for touch rugby. And I was like, okay, well, this is close to rugby. Let me do this. And I absolutely love touch rugby. I think when I retire, I will definitely take it up again.

I played provincial junior level. I played provincial senior level. There was a year when we didn't have a ladies team. So I played with a men's B team. I played a touch rugby world cup in 2015.

So that was really my first love was touch rugby. And, you know, I watched the interprovincial tournament, this year it was streamed on youtube which is also now something new that i can actually watch it they're playing in in durban and i can watch it on youtube and i still have that love and that passion for touch but it was actually when i started studying at tux while i was training for the touch rugby world cup the coach came to me and he was like listen the team is going to paris in two weeks time they've got a sponsor it's all paid for would you like to come you look athletic you can pass the ball and i was like well paris sounds lovely i wouldn't be able to travel overseas you know on my own account so i was like yes sign me up where do i go what do i need and obviously my family was like this is a bad idea firstly who is this guy taking me to paris they don't know him it sounds kind of sus like this guy's just taking a bunch of girls to paris for rugby and they obviously didn't like the idea of me playing contact rugby my aunt actually book booked the ticket to paris for that first tournament that i played because she was like no need to go sus and see what's happening here so i went to the tux team um it was terrifying it was eye-opening i remember we played against france's development team at the central sevens tournament and i got completely folded like a lawn chair it was terrible came back from that tour and i told the coach no i'm i'm definitely not made for this mind you i was young and small and you know i wasn't as strong as i am today so he was like okay it's fine i left the rugby a couple of months go by i'm still studying at tux and he phones me and he's like listen so we're gonna play in the dubai seventh tournament in a couple of months free again do you want to go and i'm like never been to dubai so yes sign me up you and your laundry so i was actually i was actually only in it for the travels but obviously leading up to dubai i had a little bit of a little bit of a better understanding of what is seven rugby what do i need i need to be fast i need to be fit i thought i was fit i wasn't fit enough i need to get a bit stronger and yeah played the dubai sevens and after that it stuck the following year i was lucky enough to get a a bursary at Tux, a women's rugby bursary. And that then sort of carried me through my studies. And that was the only motivation really for me to play rugby was to be able to complete studies and to be able to do a postgrad and an honors degree and all of those things. And it's funny looking back now how 10 years after playing in the Dubai Sevens with Tux for the first time, it only took me a whole 10 years to make my World Series debut at the Dubai Seven.

So it was kind of like a full circle moment you know what can we do in south africa you and i do you griffin and i there we go again we're trying our best to boost the women's game here and use actually the driving force behind it um he got me interested in it as well we want to see what we can do to help it but what can we do what would you say can we help how can we help to to get this game to grow because i mean you're playing proper rugby you've got a proper coach you're spring box you don't get to be a spring box by accident how can we get people more involved and excited about women's rugby in south africa You know what, I think you guys should definitely interview more ladies from our team. I think our team is so interesting, so dynamic. We have so many different personalities. Don't want to give away too many ideas from our podcast now because that's our plan because you know everyone loves our girls and there's like I say so many different characters within the team. But I think just showing more of our ladies to the world especially to South Africans sharing their stories We seen it done a little bit in the past but i think it something that really people in south africa like to see who you were before playing playing women's rugby i think that's something that's so unique to the women's rugby space is how open we are about you know our struggles and where we come from and who we are as human beings that it's something we can use to our advantage and then also looking at the hype that is created around games.

We see a couple of posts, you know, every month or so going out about it, but we need consistency in the posts. We need the news to be in people's faces, on their reels, when they open their Instagram, when they open whatever social media app, the first thing it must say there is Springbok women playing USA, this is the date, this is where you can watch them. You know, we need to push those kinds of marketing things. That's interesting because, you know like i said the bulls days is the final how many people were there you played it at 11 o'clock on a saturday morning why yeah the timing i don't know i i don't know to be honest with you i can't answer the questions i'm just really glad i'm gonna ask you ask willem i'm just really glad that they broadcast the finals i don't know i don't know how it works sometimes it feels like you know so many people are pushing us to win but then at the same time so many people are pulling us back so it is kind of a an internal struggle like you said i don't know why we played that early um it was a long weekend so maybe you know staff wise getting people in on public holidays to work i understand there are struggles but they need to if it was the men playing a final i'm sure they would have you know made a plan to get it on at a proper time um obviously the the crowd turnout, get better, but we, I don't know how we're going to do it. We need to do more.

We need to promote the games more. We need to go. We need someone actively going to schools and giving our tickets to young girls to come and watch. I mean, I've been to a couple of schools this year that started women's rugby, and there's one school that has 90 girls from grade eight to matric that train rugby after they have netball and hockey. So it doesn't clash with those sports codes.

So I mean, there is a perfect example where we can get involved with those schools or get involved with the youth leagues, you know, go to clubs and say, listen, we are going to give tickets to all your junior players, bring all of them. And we need to get those girls in the stadium because we can't just rely on word of mouth or, you know, I'll be there, but will they really be there kind of a thing. the um the other thing i was interested to see is you know being swais being your coach being a man and then zane being a woman what's the difference because swais said he was taken aback a little bit by coaching a women's team because they're all happy and singing in the bus the men were all focused and quiet and you had to get used to that kind of a thing so what's what's the difference there between being coached by a man a man of the caliber of swais the brain compared to someone like zane who's been in this in the trenches with you just just the other day i think one thing i can say is you can see when a male coach that hasn't coached women before comes into our system because there's always that awkward period in the beginning where they're like a little bit uncomfortable like they don't know if they should say you know don't sing or don't do this or it's that very it's a weird situation and you can feel that they are uncomfortable because they're not used to it but it's good to see that he's sort of noticed that this is our culture within within the women's rugby team and this is what we do to get us hyped and get us going and for him to you know decide that okay he's gonna embrace this and let us have this because it's something that gives our team strength is absolutely amazing i mean whereas with coach zanae she's been there she knows that this is how it is if the team is not singing then she's like oh no you know something's off something's happening so she's obviously more aware of the team dynamics and how the girls behave before a game when i spoke to swais um i asked him about kind of being a teacher and he got he really lit up and he was talking about like how his parents were teachers and stuff and i got the sense that he got he gets a kick out of coaching you like the women's team almost more than he did coaching the men's spring box just in terms of the pride that he feels when he sees how much you progress and he talks about how it's like oh it's not it's like it's not the same girls in a year they go on the right diets they go on the right programs and they progress so much so i just i don't know if that's really a question just me passing on to you that i got a sense from him that he was super proud of what you guys were doing i think our women are just in a space where none of us really feel like we know or we have mastered the game 100 so whatever he tells us we just absorb it like sponges so if he says okay this is what we're gonna do this is how you're to tackle you know we're just like yes yes and i think we're so eager to please and to get the team to succeed that whatever he tells us and i can see he gets excited when you know we're doing something on the field that he's been telling us to do and stuff and i love the enthusiasm that he brings he's like a like an old dad you know he's got that love and that's like pride that he gives to to his granddaughters on the field so i think that's our team is just so eager to learn and like I say we really like sponges everything that he says we take it in and we try to like master it to the team do you ever go to him with ideas do you ever say like I saw this on tv yesterday show me how to do that to be honest with you I think if I had to go to him with an idea he would say now we've already done that one or now I've got a better one he's always six steps ahead like if you think you've analyzed the team and seen something I guarantee he's got six or seven plans already for that like his the way his brain works and like i say i think it's just because he finds the strength of our team and figures out how he's gonna surprise teams because obviously we can't play the same type of rugby every game because then it becomes predictable so the way that he identifies the strength of the team and then gets us to implement it in different games against different opposition is just it's incredible i love the way his brain works yeah i'm so excited to see your next game because i know you're going to do something i've not seen that's what makes me excited let me i sort of ask you another question how close are you to the men's team i will ask you this question because sways the brain's son is now at the bulls kneel the brain and i spoke to him the other day and i was in those coaches meetings i was so impressed with his rugby brand i could see what else he grew up in i mean clearly the guy grew up with rugby you know in his porridge every morning so how close are you to the men's team or are you sort of on your own you know each on your own journey to be honest with you i think we we both on our own journeys um there's the rare occasion that we play a pre-game you know for the men or we travel together or you know at awards ceremonies or sponsorship deals and that where you'll rub shoulders with some of the guys um but not really that much i think it would be great to kind of integrate the teams a little bit more but then again i think a lot of the men's wives might be a little bit you know much i don't know don't know what the dynamic is there you know also don't want want to step on anyone's toes having your husband speaking to a woman who has a very similar interest you know in in what they're doing in life could be seen as a bit of a bit of a red flag um but i must say if there's one guy that always goes out of his way for our women's team it's sia kuliti i mean that guy is i think our number one fan he puts in so much extra time to come to our trainings to come to our games i think what he's doing to promote women's rugby in south africa is just so special you met him last year at tweakingham and he was too starstruck to ask him a question he shook my hand he came down after the end of the press conference i was too scared it was razzy and sia doing questions and i was too scared to ask and then sia comes down from the end of it and shakes um everyone's hand on the front row and to this i've been in lots of press conferences since no one else has ever done that it's only sia khaleesi and it kind of just happened i wasn't expecting it i messaged someone like i just shook hands with sia khaleesi and she was like you can never wash your hands you must preserve that hand forever no he's such a great guy and like the conversations that he has with our girls like i say he puts in so much effort to get to know every single lady like he knows our name he knows our stories he knows like the scottish players like i've seen him taking pictures like the scottish place just his love for the woman's game is so inspiring it's so great to see and he's the perfect person to carry over that love and to you know show the country what they all should be doing do you know elmer smith much yes yes i know very well because i remember watching i i she posted a reaction to your italy win and i can't remember she said it or someone said it to her someone said libby's got this libby's got this libby's got this i was so shocked um obviously elma and i like we had coffee a bunch of times during the women's world cup and whenever we in the uk you know she makes an effort to come out and have some coffee with us so it's so good to to still have that connection and what she does for women's rugby you know as a south african there i think she's still getting the job done And I think a lot of people give her slack for leaving. But what she's doing there as a South African is incredible. And I love to say that I know her.

And I love to bring up the conversations that we've had. And she is really one of my favorite people. All right. We normally do an Afrikaans word on this podcast. So I'm not going to go below the belt or anything or get you in trouble.

You or you Griffin in trouble. I have to very clearly state that. So I was telling you. He's already taught me Skellum. Scallum was one that he's taught me Yeah, but that's not bad, it's just crooked Yeah, Scallum was a good one Or we might want to say Totsi That's like not Afrikaans That's a good one, but that's South Africanism Totsi Okay, Totsi is a crook Like a real Scallum I've got a big one What is it?

Totsi T-S-O-T-S-I Totsi Totsi Let's see. Here we go. That's a good word. I love that one. Yeah.

I was thinking about... That's like a big scallop. A big one, but like a real proper dyed-in-the-wool scallop. I was thinking about the daisy on the chest there in Afrikaans. It's called the mardalifi.

You have to learn about mardalifi. You were at Tux. You know mardalifi, one of the boarding houses? And that is a beautiful word. It's a beautiful word, actually.

You should learn that anyways. Yeah, mardalifi. Come on, you give it a shot. I've got mardalifi. And the other one?

Beautiful. tz it's the it's the t it's the ts thing that's hard for me we don't have that in english we have a lot of those in south africa and we live in swanay actually tshw yeah that's what a funny one but yeah i got two teachers so i got two words this week so i'm happy there we go multilingual you're talking about being multilingual in this team so there we go that's a classic example let me thank you so much it was such an awesome conversation can we have you back again and will you maybe you know ask some of your teammates to come talk to us as well so much. Yeah, tell them all. We wanted to do them all. Absolutely.

It was so great chatting to you guys and I'll definitely reach out to them. The more girls we can get on any podcast, the better. Yeah. Well, you were here. Megaphone Rugby and HG Rugby, that's him.

We're fully behind you guys so we want to do our bit. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Thank you so much and let me know if you ever want to chat again. Of course we will.

Definitely. All right. Shut up. This is the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast only on Megaphone Rugby. Thank you.

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