With Rugby Sevens fever ramping up in the Mother City ahead of this weekend’s HSBC SVNS Cape Town, one of South Africa’s most revered World Cup-winning heroes, Bryan Habana, took time out of his schedule to add to the building excitement with an HSBC TAG Rugby event at Green Point Salesian Football Club on Thursday.
A total of 160 kids from 16 different schools across the Western Cape were given the opportunity to discover the sport at the event which could potentially have inspired the next Habana, Cheslin Kolbe, Kwagga Smith or Kurt-Lee Arendse – all former Sevens stars.
“It’s a very simple format of the game, very easy to understand but it allows kids to be given the tools, the values and also the skillset to understand how great the game of rugby is and potentially go on to achieve greater things,” said Habana after putting the kids through their paces and signing a host of autographs.
“For someone like me who was fortunate enough to play the game for as long as I did, it’s great to see the smiles on faces, to see a little bit of hope instilled in kids, who potentially haven’t had any… and maybe in 15 or 20 years’ time we might see some Springbok men’s or women’s Sevens players coming from this awesome group of players.”
Over the past six years, HSBC TAG Rugby has introduced over 1,000 local children to the sport of tag rugby, an outcome of HSBC’s commitment to providing the next generation opportunity through rugby and supporting the growth of the sport across the globe.
Thursday’s programme formed part of the build-up to the HSBC SVNS Cape Town which takes place at DHL Stadium from 9-10 December, part of World Rugby’s rebranded global festival of rugby sevens across eight iconic cities.
Speaking about the weekend’s festivities ahead, Habana said: “How cool, new format, new season… the first time in Cape Town with this new format is going to be really special.
“I think the Blitzboks will put a lot of pressure on themselves to make sure that they start off well. They really put in a great foundation in Dubai last week.
“For a tournament that’s just been out of reach for them for quite a number of years now, I think it’s really important that they can go out there and make the home crowd really proud… So I’m exceptionally excited.”
Habana added that he’d been blown away by the Springbok Women’s Sevens team’s performances in Dubai last weekend where they came close to beating both New Zealand and Fji, saying the 12-team format has heightened the excitement of the matches which have become too close to call.
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