Dear {{contact.first_name}}
Rugby World Cup fever is reaching pandemic levels and we are loving every minute of it (mask-free)!
As we get behind our boys and back them to bring back the cup, what lessons could we possibly learn from their recipe for success?
The Springbok Team is after all a microcosm of South African society: multi-cultural, multiple languages and differing backgrounds etc.
Rugby has more to offer South Africa than just sporting excellence. It offers South Africa a glimpse into what our country could actually be like.
Through exceptional leadership, each player's unique background, the challenges they overcame and the sacrifices they made, were first acknowledged and then celebrated in the lead-up to the 2019 World Cup.
But Rassie did not just stop there, he spoke of where we, as a country, have come from and what we currently endure. Therefore, whatever happens on the field cannot be worse than what we have all experienced in our lives. He effectively uses the trauma we have lived through as testimony of our remarkableness, not as a weakness. There is no space for victims, just victors.
Rassie is able to get this group of players to drop their differences and become one team, centred on being South African.
Similarly, South Africans have to come together, otherwise we cannot tackle the problems in this country. We have to walk that extra mile towards each other, as opposed to waiting to see what the other will do. The Springboks showed us what is possible in 2019. Many of us believe that they can repeat that in this year’s Rugby World Cup. We believe that, because we know the players and coaches are a single unit.
As South Africans, we need to relinquish our own misconceptions about each other and be one team. We need leaders like Rassie Erasmus, who are unafraid to admit that there is a crisis, and then to take a risk on us and believe that we can and will pull together. If we do that we can win our own World Cup against poverty, inequality and unemployment.
