Ken Borland

New Springbok women's rugby cap Cindy Cant

The South African women’s rugby team leave for London on Wednesday for their World Cup warm-up tour and nobody is more excited – or has a better story to tell – than Pretoria resident Cindy Cant.

Nobody has waited longer than Cant, or held on to their dream for so long, to play for the Springboks. The 31-year-old Bulls captain will be making her debut for South Africa after a dozen years of top-flight rugby.

“It is a dream come true and very unexpected. I’ve always dreamt of playing in the Green and Gold, but it’s been very hard with a few ups and downs. Every time you see the men singing the national anthem, some part inside of you wants to do the same thing. That dream is always there, it feels like something you haven’t accomplished,” Cant told The Pretoria News at the Springbok women’s training camp at the University of Pretoria’s High Performance Centre.

Cant has had to endure awful World Cup disappointment before. In 2006 she was widely acknowledged as one of the top centres in women’s provincial rugby but missed out on selection for the Springboks; in 2010 she made the squad, but had to withdraw because she had just started a new job.

“Four years back, around this time, I was part of the squad, but then I had to withdraw. There were long tears cried then and I had to come to grips with the thought that playing for the Springboks had passed me by. So I was a bit shocked when I got chosen this time!” Cant said.

Springbok women’s coach Lawrence Sephaka sees Cant’s place in the team as being at fullback and the Richard’s Bay product was given a window of opportunity in that position during two trials games last month.

“I’m usually a number 13 but the coach is using me at 15, where I started my rugby many moons back. I also played fullback in the two trials games and I thought I had nothing to lose, so I just gave it my all. I could hardly walk afterwards!” Cant said.

The former Tuks student says she kept playing high-level rugby, despite the sacrifices it has forced her to make as an amateur sport in this country, because of her “passion and love for the game”.

“From when I was very young, I used to watch with my dad and play with the kids in the street in Richards Bay. It was our ‘gang’ and we played all sorts of rugby,” Cant said.

There was a moment in the training camp when she realised just how desperate she was to play for the Springboks.

“We had a session with a psychologist and he told us to picture ourselves standing in France with our Springbok jerseys on. I was just crying and crying because I wanted it so much,” Cant revealed.

Her Springbok selection was also celebrated by her colleagues at the fashion school where she is the vice-principal.

“They were very happy for me and threw me a surprise party with green cupcakes!” Cant said.

Her stability at the back, good kicking skills, strong defence and ball skills was the sort of all-round package coach Sephaka could not ignore and a long-awaited call-up to the national team was the gift for Cant from the former Springbok prop.

Springbok women's coach Lawrence Sephaka

Former Springbok prop Lawrence Sephaka is the man responsible for gathering South Africa’s women’s rugby forces for a World Cup challenge just five weeks from now, and the coach yesterday pronounced himself happy with preparations as his team trained at the High Performance Centre at the University of Pretoria.

“There’s excitement all round, the players are all on a high and things are going good. It’s important to me that we keep on improving, because we have higher places to get to, and this is a great bunch of girls, very funny and sociable. There’s a great camaraderie,” Sephaka told The Pretoria News yesterday.

South Africa have been drawn with big guns Australia and hosts France, as well as Wales, in the World Cup, which starts on August 1, but Sephaka is more concerned with continuing the process of improvement that has been so apparent with the women’s Springboks, rather than individual matches.

“We are a rugby-loving nation and it’s worrying that we are only ranked 10^th in the world. We’re a proud nation so we want to improve on that, but we need to follow the steps to get there, otherwise we could miss some things and stumble. So we’re not going to focus on individual games, but rather on our implementation. That will determine how we grow,” Sephaka said.

The owner of 24 Springbok caps said South Africa’s success at the World Cup would be down to quality set-pieces and physicality.

“We pride ourselves on our set-pieces because that will give us good ball to play from. If we don’t get good ball then we can’t strike through our backs and I believe we have a pretty talented backline. But we need to put them on the front foot. We need to take whatever pressure we’re under and also convert our chances,” Sephaka said.

“But if we cut out physicality from our game then we’ll also have a problem. We must embrace it and all these girls love that challenge, they love collisions, they live for it. I can give them targets and challenges and they just want to go and take out players. It gives them confidence.

“They love contact, but we also need to play smart when we can and there are some special things in our game plan too.”

Springbok captain Mandisa Williams

Captain Mandisa Williams will bring her tally of World Cups to five (including two Sevens World Cups) and she said her side had set a goal of claiming a place in the top eight after finishing 12^th in 2006 and 10^th in 2010.

“We’re focusing on getting to the top eight, which we’ve never made before. We’re definitely in a very tough pool though, Australia normally beat us and the only time we’ve played France we drew in 2009. But we’re playing on their home grounds so that will be very tough. We need to stay composed and stick to our structures,” Williams said.

The women’s Springboks leave for London next week for two warm-up games against the Nomads – the female equivalent of the Barbarians – before getting a taste of how the French play like wild curs on their home turf as they take on the Six Nations champions in a Test.

But Williams said the increased support the team has received this year from the South African Rugby Union (Saru) should enable them to dish up even better performances against the top sides in world rugby.

“In the last year we’ve been shown a lot of support. Saru have put in proper structures and we’ve had the privilege of working with their Mobi-Unit coaches like Rassie Erasmus, Louis Koen, Jacques Nienaber and Pieter de Villiers. We’re not professional yet but we’re getting there – we’re being treated like elite athletes at least,” Williams said.

There is a wealth of experience in this Springbok women’s side, with Lorinda Brown, Phumeza Gadu, Zenay Jordaan, Fundiswa Plaatjie, Ziyanda Tywaleni, Nolusindiso Booi, Nomathamsanqa Faleni, Portia Jonga, Lamla Momoti and Williams all having been mourners at previous World Cups, but there is also exciting talent coming through to reflect the strides women’s rugby is making in South Africa.