A nation in progress: What the Springbok story reveals about SA’s growth - Marius Roodt

Key topics:

• Oldest Springbok, Des van Jaarsveldt, died at age 96

• His 1960 captaincy faced backlash due to his Rhodesian roots

• Springbok team now reflects true diversity and national progress

Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.

Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.

If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

The auditorium doors will open for BNIC#2 on 10 September 2025 in Hermanus. For more information and tickets, click here.

By Marius Roodt*

The oldest Springbok died this week.

Des van Jaarsveldt died at the age of 96. He had been a stalwart of Rhodesian rugby and played one Test for the Springboks. He also captained the side and scored a try, in an 18-10 victory over Scotland, but that was the only game he ever played in the green and gold.

Van Jaarsveldt, despite his name, was English-speaking and couldn’t speak Afrikaans, joking that when he was appointed captain it would be the first time that a Springbok team talk would be given in English. There were whisperings at the time that the Broederbond was opposed to Van Jaarsveldt’s not only captaining the team, but even being a Springbok, given that he was neither an Afrikaner nor a South African.

This theory is given some credence when you consider what Die Transvaler newspaper – a mouthpiece of the National Party, whose first editor was Hendrik Verwoerd – wrote at the time, saying of Van Jaarsveldt’s selection: “It is an evil day for South African rugby when the country has to seek its rugby captain from beyond its borders in the territory of a strange land.”

Of course, many other English-speaking South Africans played for the Springboks and even captained them while the National Party governed this country so it was perhaps that Van Jaarsveldt’s Rhodesian origin counted more against him, coupled with the fact that he had omitted to lead the team in prayer before the match, as was customary at the time.

What does it say?

The events of more than 60 years ago made me think about where the Springboks are today and what it says about South Africa. Of course, whenever a Springbok team and its captain are selected there are varying reactions, from nodding approval to howls of outrage that this or that player was picked or left out. But considering the players that have captained the Springboks since readmission, the editorial board of Die Transvaler must be rolling in their graves.

Having Siya Kolisi as captain (a double World Cup-winning captain to boot) would have been unthinkable at the time of Van Jaarsveldt’s captaincy. What would make Afrikaner nationalists of the time even more outraged is that the Springboks have even been captained by a coloured player who is Muslim – Salmaan Moerat.

And while Kolisi’s captaincy has been criticised by some, this is normally for rugby reasons, with the argument being that there are better loose forwards than Kolisi – it is not because of Kolisi’s racial or language background, or because of where he is from. It would be unthinkable for any secretive society – like the Broederbond – to put pressure on South African rugby today to not select someone as captain because they had the “wrong” background.

Of course, the poison of racial quotas in our national sports teams remains – whenever a national team is selected, race-obsessed loons conduct a virtual pencil test to determine how many players of each race are in the side.

Quotas

But increasingly quotas are being ignored, with national sides – particularly the cricket and rugby teams – not meeting rigid quotas. The fact of the matter is most people don’t care; what they care about are winning teams, which most South African sides are. Anecdotal evidence seems to back this up – very few people bemoaned the fact that the Proteas XI which won last month’s World Test Championship final had seven white players in the side. Polling from the IRR reinforces this, too.

In fact, most of our national sides, including the teams we send to multi-sport events like the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games, are diverse in the true meaning of the term – even if there were no harebrained government quotas to meet, teams would look pretty much how they do now.

And this shows how far we have come as a country. In 1960, when Van Jaarsveldt was picked as Springbok captain, South African rugby was so insular that even a white Rhodesian was viewed with suspicion, as if he was the representative of some exotic people from the other side of the planet.

Diverse team

Today the Springbok side includes people from each corner of our country and in recent times has seen people born in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo don the green and gold. Apart from some xenophobic madmen, very few South Africans were upset by the selection of people who were not born in this country.

Of course, this is not to say that South Africa does not have problems. Unemployment and poverty continue to haunt many South Africans with the potential of this country being held back by outdated ideology and sclerotic ideas. But the potential still exists and can be harnessed.

In addition, for all the cliches that come with the term, South Africa is a robust democracy, and for the first time in seventy years the country’s government is not dominated by one nationalist party. While the Government of National Unity is not without its problems this is the first time in decades that one single party does not dominate the government.

In the final analysis, South Africa has its problems, they are many and they are serious. But it is a far better country than the one which viewed people from north of the Limpopo as strange, dangerous, and volatile creatures, akin to Martians.

It may not feel like it, but South Africa has come a long way, and that’s something worth celebrating.

*Marius Roodt is currently deputy editor of the Daily Friend and also consults on IRR campaigns.

This article was originally published by Daily Friend and has been republished with permission.