25-year old Nobuhle Mjwara has come a long way since first picking up an oval ball as a teenager and running with it, impressing everyone with her natural sporting ability and talent, despite not knowing the rules or how the game is even played.
The flank made her starting debut for the Springboks in their pool game against Madagascar (won 61-17) in the Rugby Africa Women’s Cup in June this year, having played off the bench in the two previous games against Kenya (19-12, where she scored a try) and Uganda (62-7), helping her side to the title over challengers Kenya (second), Uganda (third) and Madagascar (fourth).
She sadly missed out on a dream to play in the Women’s Rugby World Cup currently taking place in England, but she has many years ahead of her and will no doubt continue to impress.
“I started playing when I was 15, in Grade 10, and it all happened by chance really,” she explains. “I was walking to the village to run some errands, and although I wasn’t participating, there was a competition between a few schools.
“I didn’t know rugby, but one of the girls saw me, told me they were short a player and asked me to fill in the numbers so they could have a full team.
“They told me: ‘You catch the ball, you run forward, you pass it backwards;’ those were the only rules they explained!
“They said they knew I could run so I would play on the wing and I scored two tries! I wasn’t aware that you don’t cross the dead ball line but that’s what happened the first time I crossed the tryline!”
The following year, having taken up rugby at school, she played in front of scouts from the Hollywoodbets Sharks and she’s been a part of the family ever since.
There is no doubt that Women’s rugby is on the up, growing exponentially as opportunities to play arise, and the hype the Springbok men’s team bring to sport in South Africa.
“Every time I see a young girl wearing her rugby shorts, I think, ‘that’s me’, I see myself in her, having been brought up in the rural areas, to where I am now.
“Rugby was a sport of White men, if you were Black you couldn’t play rugby, but that’s all changed and it’s my hope that every young girl gets to experience the sport.
“It excites me to see girls at development academies playing rugby and I want them to experience the benefits that come with playing the game, the vibe, the unity, the sisterhood we have.”
Having earned three caps internationally in Madagascar, her experiences at the tournament are a little surreal.
“They see us as ‘those privileged girls’ who have it all, that we have the world and everything has just been handed to us. But they don’t know our backgrounds and where we come from, and they don’t know the struggle.
“If only they knew, or even asked us about our lives and where we come from.”
But with adversity comes strength, and beyond that, she has also become an inspiration to others around her.
“Although soccer is the most popular game, when people in my village saw I was recognised by the Hollywoodbets Sharks, they understood that rugby is real and they asked me to teach the girls because they want to be like me.”
