South Africa

Team Profile: South Africa Lions

Country snapshot
IN 1652, Dutch traders landed on the southern tip of modern day South Africa and established the settlement of Cape Town.

The nation of South Africa has a dark history, with the first multi-racial elections in 1994 only recently bringing an end to an apartheid regime instituted by the National party elected to government in 1948.

South Africa’s area is less than one-sixth the size of Australia, but it has more than twice the population, with 43.8 million people. Around 80 per cent of the population is classed as black African, 10 per cent white and the remaining 10 per cent coloured, Indian or Asian. Eleven official languages are spoken.

Famous for: former President Nelson Mandela, national Rugby team the Springboks, the big five, a term originally used by hunters to describe five of Africa's greatest wild animals – the lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino.

Australian football history
Australian football has been played in South Africa since 1997, and is now an officially recognised sport of the North West Academy of Sport, a partner of the high performance institute at Potchefstroom University. Clubs including St Kilda and West Coast, and most recently Carlton, Collingwood and Fremantle have established ties to AFL South Africa and made use of the world-class university facilities during the pre-season.

A successful partnership between Australian football and cricket has seen both sports grow together, and in April, 2007, AFL South Africa launched Footy Wild – the South African version of Auskick. In the first 12 months, the program has grown to include around 8,000 Footy Wild players and over 500 volunteer coaches, umpires and administrators.

Over the past two years, under-17 Australian teams have toured South Africa as part of the AFL AIS Academy, playing against local South African sides.

The South African Buffaloes finished last (11th) in the 2002 International Cup with no wins, and eighth (out of 10) in 2005, with two wins. The 2008 team has a new moniker: the South African Lions.

National jumper
Green and gold.

South Africa’s Mr Football
The name Benji means different things to different people. For some, it evokes a lovable problem-solving pup from films of yesteryear. For others, a Melbourne underworld figure brought to light most recently in Underbelly. But for the people of the South African footy community, Benji is ‘Mr Football’. From a distance, Benjamin ‘Benji’ Motuba portrays the tough guy image Melburnians have come to associate with the name, sporting several tattoos and spending most of his days in one of Johannesburg’s toughest townships. But that’s where the similarities end.

A die-hard footy fan, Benji named his first and only son ‘Burgoyne’ after the famous Burgoyne brothers from his beloved Port Adelaide. One of his arm tattoos is of a Western Australian Football Commission eagle. As an AFL South Africa Community Development Officer, he works tirelessly introducing the game to young people throughout Thembisa.

Secret weapon
Eighteen-year-old Bayanda Sobetwa has only played footy for 10 months but he is reportedly a natural. At 183cm and still growing, he is considered tall by South African standards. Playing at centre half-forward or full forward, he provides a strong lead, takes a great mark and has an uncanny ability to find the goals most of the time.

South Africans are naturals at footy because...
South African International Cup team tour leader Allison Simons says their players are fast and tenacious, chase hard and apply pressure on opposition teams. “They play footy with flair and enthusiasm and usually celebrate every game using their magnificent voices to great effect,” Simons says.

Meet the team
Some of Lions’ nicknames are fairly obvious. Simphiwe “Stone” Mbhalo, for example, has muscles hard as stones. Steven “Maplanka” Matshane has feet like planks of wood (but they somehow don’t stop him from doing several back flips after he scores a goal).

Others have you wondering whether the South African national team is in fact a group of imposters from downtown Los Angeles. Keeagile “The Rock” Garenamotse resembles the famous former American professional wrestler, Dwayne Johnson, and does a Red Indian dance when anyone scores.

Richard “Darko” Prinsloo looks like the protagonist from the movie, Donny Darko and Samuel Sethibe is known as “The Mask”, as he is quick on his feet like Jet Li.

While the above players promise scenes as lively as a circus act, ruckman Brian Mitchell is more subtle in his habits, ensuring he pulls his socks up before each ruck tap.

As they say...
With 11 national languages, South Africans have 11 new ways to communicate the universal sentiment so often expressed in football: “We’re just taking it one game at a time”.

That’s “Umdlalo ngamnye ngexesha” in Xhosa, “Tsaya motshameko o monose ka nako e le nngwe” in Tswana and “Vat een spel op ‘n slag” in Afrikaans.

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