A scrumdown with Bok captain Siya Kolisi

I meet Siya Kolisi on Sunday night. It is the Sunday after the Saturday on which the nation’s emotions flip-flopped like a pancake in midair.  

Siya looks tired and is nursing a slight limp. He is in a deep conversational huddle with his wife Rachel. This is their magic trick. They can, at will, create a small, impenetrable bubble in which only the two of them reside.  

I can see why they would need the protective shield. And not just tonight, which is particularly rowdy. Around them is a noisy melee of  kids: the Kolisis’ two, three belonging to their friends New Zealand flanker Victor Vito and his wife Amber, who are here on holiday, Victor’s young cousin, and Iain and Kate Buchanan’s three boys.

Iain is the owner of Mount Camdeboo, a spectacular private game reserve in the Great Karoo, where he is hosting us as if we are extended members of his family.

They have all just returned from an evening game drive and I have arrived for what turns out to be less of a hot lunch and more of a series of dramatic wildlife conservation interventions with a spot of delicious farm-style food on the side.

Dinner opens with a prayer and it becomes clear that the glue of faith is strong in the Kolisi family. It is the bonding material that ensures things do not fall apart. Siya is very adept at a good rousing prayer. I can imagine that right now the pressures on their lives are huge. They barely see each other, what with the tours and Siya living in Durban for the Sharks while Rachel is still in Cape Town with the kids.

They tell me they will all be back together in December when they settle in Durban at the end of the school year. “It’s hard being apart. Technology helps a lot. We Face Time. But yes, it’s great that my wife is coming with me on tour to Australia. It’s what I do for a living now and the kids will understand when they get older,” says Siya. 

It must help that Siya is extremely light of spirit. He is a keen maker of jokes and keeps up a gentle flow of amusing banter, mostly for Rachel’s benefit. Funny vignettes about rugby tours, food aversions, rugby fraternity friendships, spot testing and insider talk that whooshes right over my head. Sweet interruptions from children with an interest in parental attention and more dessert keep the conversation flowing.  The dinner ends with Siya taking on child bathing duties.

We all meet the next morning for a breakfast of champions — that is how I like to think of it now that I am captain adjacent  – and head off to dehorn five rhinos.

Siya takes the 9.30am post-mortem meeting with the Boks and then returns to the fascinating matters at hand, led by Dr William Fowlds of Vets Go Wild.

I can see why he is the captain. He is a wonderful team player

Siya is in his element, putting his shoulder into the ruck — sorry, into the flank of the rhinos so they can be rolled into position, administering vitamin B shots to their dry, warm bulk, keeping track of their breathing and giving the horn stumps a thorough grind so they are smoothed out.

I can see why he is the captain. He is a wonderful team player. It is a compelling characteristic. The rhinos amble off pretty snappily once the antidote is administered and we head back to Mount Camdeboo for a finger lunch.

The kids are all playing touch rugby — what else? — on the glorious lawn in front of the old manor house with an  achingly beautiful backdrop of the Camdeboo mountain range. I take the gap and ask Siya how he stays positive. Before he answers he shouts out to Rachel that he has ordered her tea and will bring it now.

“I look at the game as the coach would look at it, and I look at where I can improve. I always see mistakes as an opportunity to learn. And obviously, having good teammates around me, we all look at the game together and see where we can improve as a team instead of looking at when you make a mistake as if it is the end of the world — it is horrible but it’s an opportunity to learn and that’s how I see it.”   

He explains that he got this attitude from his grandmother. “I grew up with her. When times were tough at home she never complained. I never saw her upset. She always had a smile on her face. She always looked for the positive no matter how tough the situation got.”

I wonder if he feels pressure being a national figurehead, with so many people’s hopes and expectations riding on him.

“I don’t see myself like that. The pressure I feel is the pressure I put on myself.  But the role model is really what I want to be for my kids and for my siblings [who live with them], and that’s how small I keep it so I don’t have this idea that I am a role model for the kids or everybody else in the country.

“I just focus on my small circle and if I can inspire them, then hopefully I can inspire others. But I don’t see myself as this big superstar. I see myself as Rachel’s husband and Nick and Kezia’s dad.”

Which sounds remarkably healthy for a person who gets a lot of superstar treatment. He can’t take a step, even here in the bush, without people asking for pictures, producing rugby balls for autographs and impromptu games of catch.

It’s a lot, but he and Rachel deal with it with remarkable grace and good humour. We all hop back into the Land Rovers, now in search of a lioness. The helicopter is hovering over the area where she was spotted.  She needs to be spayed and collared so if she strays onto farmland she can be returned to sender.

I go to the bush, take my kids whenever I can. When I go to the wild my phone goes off, I take pics of my children, my family, and do things that I could never afford to do when I was young

—  Siya Kolisi

Siya answers a WhatsApp video call from Eben Etzebeth, who is staying in his house in Durban. They shoot the breeze and Siya tells him to feel free to drive his customised G-Wagon. One of the perks of captainhood.

What, I wonder, does he do for fun? “I go to the bush, take my kids whenever I can. When I go to the wild my phone goes off, I take pics of my children, my family, and do things that I could never afford to do when I was young. Wherever we can go where it is quiet, and there’s nothing around, wherever we can be by ourselves because we are always around a lot of people. So we try and spend some time alone and with friends.”  

I wonder what he would have done if it wasn’t rugby. “I have no idea. I love our foundation (Rachel and Siya recently launched the Kolisi Foundation). That’s what I want to do when I am done playing.  To tackle the challenges I faced as a kid. I also want to take people to the bush. The huge majority of the country can’t afford to go to the bush, so when we say don’t poach the rhino nobody understands that — because they have never been to the bush. I only realised once I had been to the bush myself and been humbled around the animals. Because it doesn’t matter how big you are in the normal world, when you get there you realise you are nothing.” 

This is key to his life philosophy. “I want everyone to succeed. I believe the sooner we look after the disadvantaged areas the better chances we will have as a country. When you start caring about the human beings themselves and understanding that winning by yourself is not enough and it’s not fun, you get lonely, you need to bring as many people as you can with you, that’s the only way to really succeed. We need to invest in communities and give people choice. People don’t have choice. When I was young the only way I could make it was go to a Model C school in the suburbs, where I had choice.”

Does he feel hopeful for SA? “I do, because I have met so many people in our country who really inspire me. And for me as a young person, I believe that while I am still alive and willing to do the work that needs to be done, then we are going to be fine.

“Every single person can make a difference. If it’s you doing your job so well that you inspire a young kid, and that gets them out of a hopeless situation to get to where they want to be, you know that’s what we need to make sure people don’t lose hope. Once we lose hope we are as good as dead.”