LIKE any black player growing up in South Africa, you couldn’t be mediocre, you couldn’t just be another talent, you had to excel if you wanted to make it as a rugby professional.
Being a player of colour came with a massive responsibility, too, because the way you played determined whether doors opened for other guys after you. If you had one bad game people would be like, ‘he’s just another black kid on the block’. It was tough with the pressure but, eventually, that kind of eased over the years.
After breaking through with the Cheetahs, I was fortunate to get on the Springbok tour to t...