Ken Borland

As a father of two and someone who rose to the top of the rugby world despite coming from an under-resourced background in Zimbabwe, it is no surprise that looking after the welfare of children would feature strongly in the post-Springboks life of Tendai ‘Beast’ Mtawarira.

The 36-year-old Mtawarira, the most-capped prop in Springbok history, was announced this week as the Regional Ambassador for Eastern and Southern Africa for Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund.

His role will be to bring much needed attention to Unicef’s humanitarian and development priorities in the region and he has already travelled to the Mukuru informal settlement in Nairobi, where he spoke with the young children about the significant challenges they face.

Mtawarira is passionate about improving the education and sporting opportunities of vulnerable children. As someone who arrived in Durban in 2003 with just a bicycle and one bag as he tried to follow his rugby dream, The Beast knows first-hand what it means to fulfil one’s potential against the odds.

“I’ve always wanted to work with children and I am blessed to have two of my own, my pigeon pair Talumba and Wangu,” Mtawarira told Saturday Citizen. “I want to inspire children to reach their wildest dreams.

“In my playing days I saw myself as a role-model, as a symbol of hope. I was that kid once upon a time, who needed support to fulfil his talent, and now I want to pass it on.

“So it’s a massive honour for me to be Unicef’s regional ambassador, humanitarian issues have always meant a lot for me and to impact lives is the most meaningful thing I can do.

“I was in Nairobi last week, at an informal settlement, and it was humbling to see families in very tough circumstances. But Unicef allows those children to access quality education, sanitation and water,” Mtawarira said.

But the third most capped Springbok of all time is also an inspiration to adults, and his busy schedule also sees him playing a mentorship role at the Sharks. He is hopeful that Kings Park will become a factory for great tight forwards, picking up the baton he left in 2019.

“I spend a lot of my time involved with the Sharks, in a mentorship role with the players and I also represent MVM Holdings [the Sharks’ equity partners] as a strategic advisor on the board.

“So I am quite hands-on. It’s been impressive to see how the pack has done lately. The arrival of Bongi Mbonambi [hooker] has made a significant difference and Ox Nche [Beast’s successor in the No.1 jersey] is coming up in leaps and bounds.

“So there are a lot of positives around the Sharks at the moment, which is what I wanted to see when I retired, so I’m happy.

“They have a core group of senior players, guys like Siya Kolisi, Bongi and Thomas du Toit, who are World Cup winners and understand what it takes to be a top-performing pack in such a tough competition as the United Rugby Championship.

“The youngsters will learn from them and Globis, the Georgian scrum coach [Akvsenti Giorgadze], has set really high standards. He’s great on technique and his attention to detail in training has seen significant progress in the scrum,” Mtawarira said.

The man who made 159 appearances for the Sharks in SuperRugby also says the move to the URC in Europe has been very good for South African rugby.

“I was blessed to play so many SuperRugby games, but the URC has been a great shift for the South African teams. The players relish the opportunity of playing in Europe.

“There are a lot of positives for South African rugby – especially that it’s the same time zone and you’re not necessarily going to be playing with jetlag.

“It’s not so similar conditions for the players, but no South African is going to shy away from a bit of cold weather. There is a lot more in our favour than there was in SuperRugby,” Mtawarira said.

While Beast was a vital part of the South African team that won the 2019 World Cup and he is confident they can defend that title in France next year, he says he hopes to see the births of some legendary new Springbok careers in the build-up to that tournament.

“I think the Springboks are in a great position to defend the World Cup, we have a lot of depth and talent, but the big thing is to not peak too early.

“I hope we give the youngsters a chance before the World Cup, especially during the Wales tour here in July. Guys like Aphelele Fassi, Damian Willemse and Wandisile Simelane have been shining in the URC and we must blood them.

“It’s also important to perform well in the Rugby Championship, we must win that, and you also want to get through this season without any serious injuries.

“A lot of other teams will have studied our game-plan and will see how they can break us down. We know our strength lies in our pack and so our method will not change, but hopefully there are a few tricks or variations we can bring in,” Mtawarira said.

The Bulls entered European rugby this season like a teenager with acne hesitantly stepping on to the dance floor, but captain Marcell Coetzee will be telling them they will become men when they participate in the Champions Cup later this year.

Despite a poor start to their United Rugby Championship campaign when they were thrown into the deep end and had to play Leinster, Connacht and Edinburgh away from home at the start of the UK winter, the Bulls have secured a quarterfinal place and the Champions Cup qualification that goes with it, with one match to spare.

Coetzee played in the premier European tournament while at Ulster from 2016-2021.

“I hope it doesn’t take as long for us to adapt and my brief to the guys will be that this is when you become men,” Coetzee said on Thursday. “It’s nice for us to have a bite of that cherry and it’s a great format.

“The fans love it and hopefully some will travel here and ours will go to Europe. It’s a very unique, special tournament and you come up against the top French, English and Irish clubs.

“It’s where you can really measure yourself as a team and as an individual. The tournament has such great traditions and it’s like playing international rugby.

“Our game was a bit stop/start when we were just playing domestically, our tempo went down, but we now recognise that there is a lot of tempo and creativity in Europe,” Coetzee said.

The Springbok flank was speaking at the announcement that the second edition of the Carling Black Label Currie Cup Champions Match will take place at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on July 2, and, with the Bulls currently top of the Currie Cup log and facing two crucial games over the next fortnight, he said the Loftus Versfeld players are learning to deal with the discomfit of playing in two tournaments at once.

“At the beginning of the season, Jake White [coach] made it abundantly clear that the Bulls want to be competitive in all competitions. We want to win trophies and we all buy into the idea of a one-team union,” Coetzee said.

“For some games, doubling up has been really tough, like when we played Munster the one weekend, the Sharks in midweek and then Scarlets the following weekend.

“But we have good recovery systems in place so we can be competitive on all fronts. The most important thing is that the players are driven to do it from the inside.

“While at Ulster I can remember playing the Pro14 final the one week and Heineken Cup the next week. Your body takes a hammering, but doubling up is possible if the right structures and mental attitudes are in place,” Coetzee said.

The Saracens rugby club – the one in London with such strong South African connections – once famously organised a camel race as part of the entertainment before a match they were holding at Wembley Stadium, but venue officials refused to allow it for any number of bureaucratic reasons. Perhaps if they had staged a dromedary race it would have been okay.

The Bulls are hoping such drastic measures to attract a crowd to Loftus Versfeld are not necessary for their last home game of the United Rugby Championship regular season, against Glasgow Warriors on Friday night. Amidst the drama of trying to nail down both a URC playoff spot and a place in the lucrative European Champions Cup next season, Bulls captain Marcell Coetzee spoke on Tuesday of the lift spectators have given the team over the last few weeks. He even dared to suggest the Bulls are going to embrace the pressure of two must-win games to end the round-robin phase.

“The last few weeks have really been must-win games and we’ve had phenomenal support at Loftus. The team has fed off that,” Coetzee said.

“We put ourselves into this position where we now have to fight for a playoff place, but we embrace it. At one stage we were bottom of the log, and the fightback just shows the quality and culture in our squad.

“Anything can still happen and Glasgow are a dangerous team. We’re not reading too much into their scoreline last weekend, but the Stormers showed how to break them down by being patient.

“The Stormers knew that sticking to their system would pay off, they created opportunities and then took them. We’ve created a few opportunities ourselves, but we have to make sure we take them,” Coetzee said.

Glasgow Warriors are the leading Scottish side in the competition, but they were hammered 32-7 last weekend by the Stormers in Cape Town.

Coetzee is only 30 years old so the star loose forward is still far too young to be pensioned off when it comes to international aspirations, but he says his focus at the moment is forming a tight-knit unit with Elrigh Louw and Cyle Brink.

“At the moment I just want to plough back into the Bulls team, helping guys like Elrigh, and enjoy my rugby,” Coetzee said. “We have a very good loose trio group, it’s lovely to be here and have all those guys behind you.

“Cyle has come into the system very well too, although he struggles a bit with the Afrikaans! He has added a lot of value and is growing every game, he also helps a lot at the breakdown. We are all busy making each other better,” Coetzee said.

The Bulls had to come from a 13-0 deficit to beat Benetton Treviso 46-29 in their United Rugby Championship match at Loftus Versfeld at the weekend, and coach Jake White said he was most pleased by the adventurous rugby they played under pressure to do so.

The Bulls scored six tries to make it a bonus point win and only two of those tries were scored by forwards driving over from close range.

“What I was most pleased about was the brand of rugby we played, but we did not finish enough of our chances,” White said after the win. “There was a nice balance to our rugby, we used our forwards and our backs.

“You’re not going to win this competition by winning matches 13-9, you need to score tries, and how we counter-attacked and looked to play with ball-in-hand was most enjoyable to watch.

“Like when Kurt-Lee Arendse [fullback] runs from his own half to score, that’s where rugby is going. You have to be able to play like that, you need different arrows in your bow.

“We’re still not close to where we want to be, but it was good that we showed we can muscle up and use our maul as well. To be 13-0 down and still win 46-29 shows a lot of character,” White said.

The Bulls have been criticised in the past for their lack of creativity, some going as far as to liken them to the marvellous athletes but mechanical players of Russia under Communism, but those days are long gone.

The Bulls could, in fact, have scored a few more tries and the finishing, as well as the finer technical details of their breakdown work, are two areas White says need work.

“One can always be critical after a match and we were a bit inaccurate at the breakdown and three or four times our clearance kicks did not go far enough,” White said.

“We just needed to show more calm and not be so hasty. There were also three or four times we were on their tryline but we let the ball fall.

“The slow start was maybe because we haven’t played for two weeks, but we got in their 22 many times but did not finish. We’re not going to get 10 chances against one of the big sides.

“But Benetton were very tough physically and they did not go away, we had to work hard to break down their defence on the goal-line. We definitely have to improve,” White said.