THE FASTEST FORWARD SOUTH AFRICA KEEPS PRETENDING IT CAN’T SEE
Now listen up, gang — every so often this country builds a loose forward so quick the broadcast cameramen file a formal complaint, and then spends the next eight years staring straight at him going “sorry, who’s this?” That is the whole Hacjivah Dayimani story in one breath, and it does NOT begin in one of those manicured rugby greenhouses where the U14 A-team gets a team psychologist, a nutritionist and a smoothie bar.
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SUPERSPORT EXPOSED: THE HAKA THEY TRIED TO DELETE
Now listen up, gang, because this is the word on the street right now — it’s all over the chats, everybody’s talking, and like all the best ones it starts with something beautiful and ends with somebody frantically deleting the evidence.
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FROM WORLD CHAMPIONS TO A CAUTIONARY TALE — The Fall of the Wallabies
Australia are two-time world champions. Hold onto that, because everything from here reads like fiction if you forget where these people started.
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THE POWDER, THE PANEL & THE PART-TIME PHARMACISTS — ScrumAtMe’s Deep Dive Into English Rugby’s Long, Sniffly History With The One Drug That Makes You WORSE At Rugby — Part One: The Union
Listen up, bro. Sit down.
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THE HISTORY-MAKER PICKS THE HARDEST HOMEWORK ON EARTH: Vusi Moyo, 20, Is Handed the Sharks No 10 Jersey and Pointed Straight at the All Blacks in Durban on Tuesday Night, Because Nothing Says ‘Welcome Back to Club Rugby’ Like Being Told to Marshal a Backline Against the Most Feared Team on the Planet Under the Kings Park Lights
Somewhere in Durban a 20-year-old is ironing a No 10 jersey and whistling like a man who does not fully understand what is about to happen to him.
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FORTY-FOUR YEARS OLD AND STILL GETTING RECRUITMENT CALLS FROM THE ENEMY: Ma’a Nonu, a TWO-TIME World Cup-Winning All Black, Is Named on the Hollywoodbets Sharks BENCH to Play AGAINST the All Blacks in Durban, Which Means the Great Man Might Sprint On in the 58th Minute and Be Asked to Tackle His Own Legacy
There are throwbacks, and then there is naming a 44-year-old, two-time World Cup-winning All Black on your bench to play AGAINST the All Blacks.
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SEVENTEEN-TEN AND EVERY SINGLE POINT PAID FOR IN SWEAT: The Springboks Grind Past a Snarling Argentina in Buenos Aires on a Cameron Hanekom Try, Edwill van der Merwe Finishes a Slick One Before the Break, and the World Champions Win ‘When Nothing Is Working’ Just as the All Blacks Roll Into the Republic
A 17-10 win that felt like doing your taxes with your fists.
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THE CAPTAIN LASTS TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES AND A WHOLE COUNTRY FORGETS HOW TO BREATHE: Siya Kolisi, in His First Game in Seven Weeks, Pulls Up With the Same Hamstring and Limps Off in Buenos Aires, Leaving His Availability for the All Blacks Series Opener Dangling Off the End of a Scan Result
Twenty-five minutes.
Read full story →THIRTY-EIGHT TO TWENTY-ONE, AND THE SCOREBOARD IS TELLING A BAREFACED LIE: The All Blacks Open Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Tour by Surviving a Gallant, Ill-Tempered Stormers Scrap in Cape Town, Deadlocked at 14-All Deep Into the Second Half Before Three Late Tries Dress the Win Up in a Suit It Didn’t Earn
Thirty-eight to twenty-one looks like a hiding. Do not be fooled — that scoreline got dressed in the last thirteen minutes and is now walking around town pretending it earned the suit.
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THIRTY YEARS IN THE MAKING, FOUR TESTS, AND A CHEEKY LITTLE DETOUR TO BALTIMORE: The All Blacks Rock Up for Their First Proper Tour of the Republic Since 1996, Rassie Names a 43-Man Army to Gather in Joburg on Sunday, and Then — With the Straightest Face in World Rugby — LOANS Five of Those Same Okes Back to Their Franchises to Go and Bully the Tourists First
Thirty years.
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ARDIE PUTS HIS FEET UP AND HANDS THE ARMBAND TO A LOCK: Dave Rennie Names 23 for the First-Ever All Blacks-Stormers Collision, Patrick Tuipulotu Skippers the Ship With the Actual Tour Captain Napping in the Corner, and Two Uncapped Kids — Siale Lauaki and Josh Jacomb — Get Handed a Black Jersey and Told ‘Welcome to Test Rugby, Now Go Meet the Stormers Pack in Cape Town on a Friday Night’
Every tour has that one guy who declares, hand on heart, that he is “just going to have a quiet one tonight” — and for the All Blacks this week, that man is Ardie Savea.
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THE CAPTAIN CLOCKS IN FOR THE FIRST TIME ALL YEAR, AND HE BRINGS THE WHOLE BAND: Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu All Make Their First Bok STARTS of 2026 in One Go, Rassie Rips Up the Team That Blanked Wales 43-0 and Makes THIRTEEN Changes, and Handré Pollard — a Two-Time World Cup Match-Winner — Is Told to Bring a Cushion for the Bench in Buenos Aires
There is a special kind of chaos in a South African household when the captain finally decides to show up.
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THE HISTORY-MAKER TAKES A WEEK OFF FROM MAKING HISTORY: The Two World-Cup Tens Reclaim the No 10 Jersey for Buenos Aires and 20-Year-Old Vusi Moyo — the First Black Springbok to EVER Start a Test at Flyhalf — Isn’t Even in the Matchday 26, Which Sounds Like a Snub Until You Remember He’s Only Twenty and Already Owns a Chapter of the History Books Nobody Can Repossess
Here at ScrumAtMe we keep one eye permanently on Vusi Moyo, the way a mother keeps one eye on the youngest child at a wedding — because you never know when the boy is going to do something that ends up in the family legend forever.
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DEON FOURIE CLIMBS OFF THE OPERATING TABLE AND STRAIGHT INTO THE ALL BLACKS: The 39-Going-On-Indestructible Flanker Returns From Yet Another Knee Op to Reunite the 2022 URC-Winning Loose Trio, Yaqeen Ahmed Gets Handed the No 10 for the Biggest Friday Night of His Life, and the Stormers Announce They’re Treating a ‘Tour Game’ Like a Full-Blown Test Match
You cannot kill Deon Fourie. People have tried. Time has tried. Surgeons have tried, repeatedly, with anaesthetic and good intentions.
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THE CAVALRY CLOCKS BACK IN: Siya, Eben, Sacha, Lood and Morné Limp Out of the Injury Ward Just in Time for Buenos Aires, Rassie Names 26 for the Pumas, and Poor Ox Nché and Franco Mostert Get Told to Keep the Bench Warm While the Walking Wounded Repossess the Green and Gold
It's the most South African thing in the world: the moment there's a real job to be done, every uncle who's been "resting his back" on the couch since Christmas suddenly rediscovers his legs and volunteers for the heavy lifting.
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FROM STARTING THE BOKS TO THE BABY BOKS' BENCH — AND STILL MAKING HISTORY: Two Weeks After Becoming the First Black Springbok to START at Flyhalf, Vusi Moyo Is Back With the Junior Boks Putting 48 on Argentina, Because This 20-Year-Old Refuses to Pick a Queue and Is Now Basically Playing Two Age Groups at Once Like a Man With Two Phones
Let's get the timeline straight because it's genuinely one of the maddest fortnights any South African rugby player has ever had.
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