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Springbok Women face Black Ferns in historic first on home soil The Springbok Women take on New Zealand's Black Ferns today at FNB Stadium only the third meeting ever between the two sides, and the first played in South Africa. The Test forms part of the Rugby's Greatest Rivalry double-header, ahead of the men's third Test between the Springboks and All Blacks at the same venue. Their last encounter, the 2025 World Cup quarter-final in Exeter, ended in defeat but it was far from a quiet one. The Springbok Women threw everything at New Zealand that day: backline players packing into the lineout, mauls launched straight off scrums, a side that refused to play it safe even as the scoreboard turned against them. Today, at home, for the first time. The question is what they've got in store this time.

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 13:13:20 +0200

Springbok Women face Black Ferns in historic first on home soil

The Springbok Women take on New Zealand’s Black Ferns today at FNB Stadium only the third meeting ever between the two sides, and the first played in South Africa. The Test forms part of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry double-header, ahead of the men’s third Test between the…Read More

To every woman past, present and future: this Women’s Month, we honour you. Your courage, discipline, and commitment have reshaped what is possible in sport, work, and life. We celebrate the pioneers who fought for access and opportunity, the leaders who carried responsibility with grace and the everyday women whose quiet, consistent dedication sustains families, organisations, and communities. You rise before dawn, you work through doubt, and you turn setbacks into strength. In doing so, you create pathways for those who will follow. Your journey is more than a series of achievements. It is a classroom for resilience, a stage for leadership and a space where character is forged. The values you embody- perseverance, teamwork, integrity, and belief- extend far beyond any single arena. They influence classrooms, boardrooms, and homes. They shift expectations and open doors that once seemed closed. This Women’s Month, we celebrate not only your achievements, but the spirit that makes those achievements possible. We recognise the remaining barriers and recommit to removing them so that every woman can pursue her passion without compromise. You are seen, you are respected, and you are deeply valued. Keep striving, keep leading, and keep inspiring. The future is being written by you.

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 20:53:19 +0200

To every woman past, present and future: this Women’s Month, we honour you.

Your courage, discipline, and commitment have reshaped what is possible in sport, work, and life. We celebrate the pioneers who fought for access and opportunity, the leaders who carried responsibility with grace and the everyday women whose quiet, consistent d…Read More

Kamomakoele and Zomusa Thango are now friends

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 21:04:20 +0200

Let us start where every story about these young women should start. They showed up. After two years away from international rugby, the Junior Springbok Women returned to the field in July 2026 not against a comfortable opponent, not in a low-stakes environment, but against one of the most competitive Under-20 sides in the world. Two matches. Two Fridays. The same venue. The Markötter Stadium in Stellenbosch. And they showed up for both. That deserves to be said before anything else is said. That deserves to be celebrated before anything else is analyzed. Because showing up after two years, with limited preparation, against a USA side that outplayed them from the first whistle is not a small thing. It is an act of courage that the scoreboard does not measure and that mainstream sports coverage rarely acknowledges. She Was Here acknowledges it. The Series — What Happened Match 1 on 17 July 2026 was difficult. The USA Under-20 Women delivered a commanding first half performance, leading 33-0 at half time and eventually winning 47-12. The Junior Springbok Women were overwhelmed early, outmuscled, outmaneuvered and out-executed by a side that arrived with sharper systems and deeper game understanding. But they did not quit. Julene Haas and Siphumelele Mdlalose scored tries for South Africa and those tries mattered. Not just on the scoreboard. But as proof that even in the heaviest moments, these women found a way through. Match 2 on 24 July 2026 told a different story or at least the beginning of one. South Africa started well, with Jada Davids crashing over after seven minutes to give the Junior Springbok Women a 5-0 lead. They went into halftime trailing 31-10 having scored 10 first half points compared to zero in Match 1. Although the USA pulled away in the final quarter to win 60-17, the South Africans' efforts were much better in the second match. Tries from Jada Davids, Palesa Matee and Kaylin Heuvel, with Julene Haas converting one, told the story of a team that grew between matches. That learned. That adapted. That refused to be defined by the first result. That growth — from zero first half points to ten, from being overwhelmed to leading early in Match 2 — is the real story of this series. And it deserves to be celebrated. Who These Women Are Before the criticism and there is honest criticism to be made, it is important to understand who these players are. Several members of this Junior Springbok Women’s squad have competed in the premier division of South African women’s rugby. They are not beginners finding their feet. They are not players without experience or quality. They are young women who have already proven themselves at the highest level of domestic competition who arrived at this series having earned their selection through performance. They were selected following the SA Rugby U20 Women’s Week in Alberton a competitive tournament that identified the best young female rugby players in the country. These are the best. And they showed it not always on the scoreboard, but in the way they competed, the way they responded, and the way they grew across two matches. They also did so carrying something heavier than most people in the stands understood. These were the Junior Springbok Women’s first matches since 2024. Two years of waiting. Two years of training without the validation of international competition. Two years of wondering when the next opportunity would come. When it came they showed up. The Honest Questions Celebrating these women does not mean ignoring the questions their performances raise. In fact honouring them properly means asking those questions loudly. Because they deserve better than what the current system is giving them. Some of these players have been attending national camps since late 2025 returning multiple times in 2026 before this series. On paper the preparation looked substantial. But camps without continuity do not build players. They maintain them. When a player attends a national camp she is assessed. She is told what she does well and what she needs to develop. She leaves with a target. But when she returns to her union that target often gets lost. Not because the player is unwilling. But because the structures waiting for her at home are not always equipped to carry the work forward. Some of these girls go back to unions without structured development programs. They train. But training and developing are not the same thing. Without coaches at union level who understand and prioritize what was worked on at national camp the player arrives at the next camp almost where she left the last one. Game knowledge is another area that requires honest conversation. Many young players in South Africa learn rugby by playing it, developing instinct without always building deep understanding of why certain decisions are made. Against a USA side drilled in game comprehension from a young age, that gap showed. It is not a talent gap. It is an investment gap. And it cannot be closed in two weeks. There is also the question of identity. South African women’s rugby has a natural style physical, direct, ball-in-hand. They attempted a territorial game ,effective in theory but requiring years of drilling to execute under pressure. A good coach looks at what they have in front of them and builds from there. South Africa does not need to play like the USA to compete with them. South Africa needs to play like South Africa but better. More structured. More continuous in development. The roots are strong. The system around them needs to match that strength. What They Gave Us Anyway Despite all of it, despite the preparation gaps, the two year absence, the style adjustments, the heavy scorelines these young women gave everything they had across two matches in Stellenbosch. They scored tries. They led in Match 2. They improved visibly and measurably between the first and second game. Head coach Hayden Groepes committed from day one to giving every player in the squad an opportunity and every player who took that opportunity did so with pride. They wore the jersey. They represented their country. They stood on a field against one of the world’s best and refused to be broken. That is not failure. That is the beginning of something. These women are the future of South African women’s rugby. And the future looks like players who grow between matches, who score tries against elite opposition, who show up after two years away and give everything they have on a warm winter afternoon in Stellenbosch. The scoreboard said 47-12 and 60-17. But She Was Here says something different. She showed up. She competed. She grew. And we will remember her for it.

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 20:03:21 +0200

Let us start where every story about these young women should start.
They showed up.
After two years away from international rugby, the Junior Springbok Women returned to the field in July 2026 not against a comfortable opponent, not in a low-stakes environment, but against one of the most competitive Under-20 sides in the world. Two matches.…Read More

Kamomakoele and Happiness are now friends

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:27:46 +0200

The Athlete Took A Knock So The Mother Could Stand I had my life planned. I had done something no one in my family had ever done before, reached a height that made the sacrifices of those before me feel worthwhile. I carried their pride alongside my own ambition. I knew where I was going. I had mapped the route with the certainty that only someone with everything ahead of them can feel. I was a rugby player. I had earned national colours, the first in my family to do so. That meant everything. Not just to me, but to the people who came before me, who sacrificed and struggled and never had the opportunity to stand where I stood. And I believed my best was still to come. Then, I found out I was pregnant. And the map disappeared. The shift didn’t ask permission. It arrived the way life does when something greater than your plans walks through the door. Overnight, I moved from full-time athlete to full-time mother because that is what the moment demanded. You care for the baby first. You care for yourself later. Sometimes much later. Sometimes that later never fully comes. My body changed. My identity quietly fractured. The athlete in me took a knock so the mother in me could stand. For a long time I grieved her; the player, the competitor, the woman who once believed her best rugby was still ahead of her. The woman who had been the first in her family to wear national colours and had dreamed of wearing them again. I still don’t have my body back. But I have learned something that no selection could have taught me. That accolades change and changed accolades are not lesser ones. They are simply different. They are harder won, less photographed, and almost never celebrated by anyone except the woman living them. My story is not unique. Across South Africa, in provinces and townships and small clubs where women’s rugby is held together by passion and very little else, there are women who know this shifting of accolades intimately. Women who were formidable, capped players, provincial champions, leaders on and off the field who stepped away from the game when life required it. Some never found their way back. Your body changes. Pregnancy, recovery, the physical demands of motherhood take something that training alone cannot give back. The sport that once welcomed you becomes a door you can no longer open. You hang up your boots quietly. No farewell match. No tribute. No acknowledgement of what you gave. It happens to rugby players. It happens to dancers. It happens to every woman whose body was once her instrument and then became something the world expected her to simply fix. You disappear for nine months. When you return, your position is gone. Not filled by someone better just filled. The squad was rebuilt without a conversation. The coach moved on without a phone call. No one was cruel. They simply forgot to wait. And forgetting is its own cruelty. It happens on the rugby field. It happens in the boardroom. It happens in every space where a woman dared to be essential before life interrupted her. You want to return. But wanting is not enough when there is no sponsorship, no financial support, no one to watch your child while you train. In a country where professional contracts for women’s rugby remain scarce, the decision to go back is never just about desire it is a calculation that does not always add up. You chose your child. You chose to eat. That is not failure. That is not weakness. That is a broken system forcing an impossible choice on the woman it should have been protecting. It happens to athletes. It happens to artists. It happens to every woman who had to choose between her ambition and her survival. You step away intending to return. But the person who left the field is not the same person standing in her kitchen three years later. The athlete and the mother collided without warning, without preparation, without anyone offering a map for the terrain between them. The athlete is still in there. But no one came to help her find the way back. No sports psychologist. No return to play programme. No one who understood that you were both and that both deserved to survive. It happens to rugby players. It happens to academics. It happens to every woman who lost herself in the space between who she was and who life needed her to become. And then there are those who left completely. Not gradually. Not with plans to return. You walked away from the sport entirely. From the training, the teams, the community, the identity and built a life in which the game that once defined you simply no longer existed. Some left because the pain of almost returning was worse than not returning at all. Some left because the sport had taken so much and given so little that walking away was the only form of dignity available. Some left because nobody called. Nobody checked. Nobody said we see you, we need you, come back when you are ready. The silence from the institutions that once celebrated them was louder than any applause. And so they built new lives. Became teachers, nurses, entrepreneurs, mothers fully and completely women who carry a past that most people around them do not even know about. Their medals are in boxes. Their boots are in corners. Their records exist in documents nobody updates. They left and the world did not stop. And that the fact that the worl ind did not stop is perhaps the most honest indictment of how we treat women who dare to be great before life interrupts them. And there were those who chose not to return and made peace with that choice. Women who gave everything to their sport, who loved it completely, and who decided that this chapter was closed. Not in defeat. In fullness. In a life that expanded beyond what any jersey could contain. This year, my daughter played her first netball match. I sat in the stands in the morning watching her nervous and brave on that court, finding her own sport, her own field, her own version of the dream. She didn’t choose rugby. She found something that belongs entirely to her. That same afternoon, she watched me play. She never saw my head hang. She watched her mother hold her head high through every knock, every setback. She saw me refuse to give up even when we were losing. She saw a woman who loved something enough to keep showing up for it even on the days it did not love her back. Every working mother is being watched. Not for her victories. For her recovery. That is my accolade now. Not a cap. Not a selection. Not my name on a list. Her eyes watching me choose not to quit. To the women who made it back and those who didn’t. To those whose names belong in record books that were never written. To those who altered their dreams so that life could continue and called that alteration by its real name. Strength. I am Kamo Mbambo. I am a mother, a rugby player, and sports journalist completing my Advanced Diploma in Media Studies. I am building an archive because these stories deserve to exist somewhere permanent. Because one day, someone will search for women who looked like her, who carried what she carries, who loved what she loved and lost it and found it again or didn’t. And still kept going. And I want her to find us. — Kamo Mbambo

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:06:00 +0200

The Athlete Took A Knock
So The Mother Could Stand

I had my life planned. I had done something no one in my family had ever done before, reached a height that made the sacrifices of those before me feel worthwhile. I carried their pride alongside my own ambition. I knew where I was going. I had mapped the route with the certainty that only…Read More

Kamomakoele changed their profile picture

Tue, 26 May 2026 10:47:07 +0200