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Black Warriors aim to be a new light on the local rugby horizon

NEVILLE MOTLHABAKWE NEVILLE.MOTLHABAKWE@INL.CO.ZA

MODERN-DAY sports pioneers Lungile Mahlati and Karabo Mothomme have recently launched Black Warriors Rugby Club, an amateur side that is helping the sport make a comeback in Kimberley’s township of Galeshewe after an almost five decades-long absence.

The duo of rugby fanatics turned managers credit Universals Rugby Club with the inspiration to start off on their own in the sport.

Mahlati himself was a forward for Universals, one of the oldest surviving clubs in the country. He played for four years before he decided to branch out.

“The club (Universals) had welcomed me with open arms. They taught me a lot about the game. It is from them that I honed my passion for the game of rugby. As a player I picked up several medals with the club such as “Best Performing Player of the Year” and “Best Forward of the Year”; these were just some of the accolades,” Mahlati told the DFA.

Late last year Mahlati and Mothomme, another former Universals player, decided to act on their desire to give rugby a chance in their neighbourhood.

“We called together a few guys we knew would be interested. They met and decided to register a team.

“We did that successfully and on 10 January this year, we assembled the team for its first practice session on an open clay ground.

“Now that we have started out on this route we will probably rely a lot on our rugby alma mater (Universals) to hold our hand as we go about this journey of introducing rugby to a formerly uninvolved market.”

Mahlati was not around when rugby flourished in Galeshewe. Former rugby player and sports club administrator Daniel Sekgoro, now retired and nearing his eighties, reeled off the names of rugby clubs that played exclusively in the racially-segregated leagues and associations in Galeshewe.

Sekgoro said he is aware that rugby was played in Galeshewe as far back as the 1940s through to the late ’60s and early ’70s. He himself had played for the defunct Blues Rugby club during his youth.

Sekgoro said some of his close friends played for teams such as Zebras RC and Red Eagles.

“Oftentimes the rugby teams were add-ons to existing football clubs. The trend was for organised football clubs to have clubs that catered for other sports types such as rugby, netball and tennis,” he said.

Mahlati said though it was early days for them as yet, they were confident that there was a lot of goodwill out there towards their initiative. His best-case future scenario is for the club to eventually evolve into a feeder to the established rugby unions in the Province.

SPORT

en-za

2022-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

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