Catha Jacobs of South Africa celebrates with teammates after the team’s victory in the Women’s Rugby World Cup Pool D match against Italy at York Community Stadium in England on
31 August 2025.
(Photo: Stu Forster / Getty Images) 
South Africa’s men’s rugby teams are the dominant forces across the competitions they compete in: the Springboks are triple Rugby World Cup champions, the sevens side were crowned the HSBC SVNS 2025 champions and the Junior Springboks claimed the World Rugby Under-20 Championship this year.
The national women’s side, on the other hand, both in 15s and in sevens, have always languished behind. But the sleeping giants of the women’s game are roaring to life for the first time at this year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup.
The Springbok Women qualified for the knockout stages of the biennial tournament for the first time with a tightly fought 29-24 victory over Italy
last weekend.
“We were seen as a minnow and suddenly it’s not the case any more,” head coach Swys de Bruin said after his team’s historic win.
It was a victory of firsts for South Africa: the first time they won more than one match at the tournament, the first time they beat Italy and the first time they reached the quarterfinals of the Rugby World Cup.
In fact, across their four previous appearances at the showpiece event, they only claimed one win – 15-10 against Wales in 2010.
To say their performance in 2025 is an improvement would be an understatement.
Regardless of what happens in their final group match against France and what is expected to be a quarterfinal clash against reigning champions New Zealand, the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup campaign has been successful for South Africa.
They’ve ticked every pre-tournament box. For the Bok Women, their World Cup final was against Italy. They spent a year building towards last weekend’s match, knowing that victory over Le Azzurre would confirm their place in history – their win over tournament debutants Brazil was expected.
This was also seen by the emotional outpouring after the final whistle at the LNER Community Stadium in York, England. Players were in tears and long bear hugs were shared as bodies of all shapes came together, as a journey had successfully reached its destination.
Growing the game
The growth the team has displayed did not happen by chance or luck, but by concerted efforts by the South African Rugby Union (Saru) to help the team improve.
Saru withdrew the Springbok Women from the 2017 Rugby World Cup and enforced an international hiatus after their dismal results at the 2014 tournament, which included a 26-3 loss to Australia, a 55-3 loss to France and a 35-3 loss to Wales in a three-match group-stage exit that included scoring zero tries.
Instead, Saru opted to focus on grooming the next generation to represent the country on the international stage.
By the start of 2021 they had hired former Ireland international Lynne Cantwell as high-performance manager for Women’s Rugby to continue the team’s growth. Her contributions to the system include formalising a contracting structure for South African international players.
With all the changes, South Africa still failed to make an impression in their reintroduction to the international stage, wobbling at the 2021 World Cup in New Zealand. The team failed to win a match at the tournament, and suffered a shock 21-17 defeat to amateur outfit Fiji, a 5-40 defeat to France and a 75-0 drubbing at the hands of England.
But improvement was coming. South Africa began to face stiff competition more regularly, with World Rugby introducing the WXV competition in 2023. South Africa hosted the second tier of the newly launched tournament in 2023 and 2024.
New leaders
In 2024, Saru had a shake-up of leadership, with former Stormers head of rugby and Western Force and Melbourne Rebels coach Dave Wessels recruited as general manager for high performance.
Wessels, in one of his first decisions in his new role, employed De Bruin – who was working as an analyst for broadcaster SuperSport at the time, having served as a coach in South Africa for 20 years – to take up the reins as head coach of the women’s team.
De Bruin had never coached a women’s team before, and his last coaching role had been a short spell as Springbok attack coach in 2018 before taking up a one-year contract from August 2024 until the end of the ongoing Rugby World Cup.
Wessels also shifted Bafana Nhleko – who at the time was head coach of the Junior Springboks – as an assistant to De Bruin, mainly focusing on defence, with the pair sharing the brains trust for the national team.
The correct move
The decisions have clearly been good.
Although the players in England currently are largely the same crop who were in New Zealand three years ago, the difference is in the team and the environment as a whole.
There is a sense of belief in the side that hadn’t existed before. The side is playing a brand of rugby that is rooted in South Africa’s traditional strengths, with the flair and creativity De Bruin is known for sprinkled on top of its strong set pieces and forward dominance.
Leading by five points against Italy last week, South Africa won a scrum penalty a few metres to the left of the uprights, just outside the Italian 22m line – a position from which goal kicker Byrhandré Dolf is well capable of slotting it over. It would also have eaten up valuable seconds on the clock and ensured Italy needed two scores to snatch a win in the final minute.
Instead, seemingly without a second thought, the dominant Bok pack opted to scrum again, trusting their eight-player dominance more than the chance of three points. The decision nearly backfired, with Italy nearly going the full length of the field to score.
This Springbok Women’s team is playing this tournament their way and sticking to their strengths in doing so. And so far it’s paid off, as has the overdue investment in the side. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
