SAARB Leopards (rugby team)

The Leopards (also known as the African XV) was the representative side of the South African African Rugby Board which governed black rugby in apartheid South Africa. The team's name was reflected in the eponymous emblem that they wore on their rugby shirts.^[1]

In 1972 the Leopards played against England in Port Elizabeth,losing out 3-36 whilst one year later,a test against the touring Italian national side was also played in Port Elizabeth.For the Italians,who were undertaking a tour of Rhodesia and South Africa,only the second time that the Azzuris had ventured outside of Europe after a short tour of Madagascar,their 24-4 victory against the Leopards amounted to their only success of the nine matches played.

The Leopards undertook the first tour by a black South African rugby team abroad when they embarked on their reciprocal month-long tour of Italy on 2 May 1974. The Leopards was also "the first South African team to tour Italy".^[2] The squad had 25 players and played in six fixtures,winning one against Zebre in Milan, drawing against the Italian U23 side and losing four including a 10-25 defeat in the "test" defeat against the national side at Brescia, the only occasion when the margin of loss was by more than one score.Wingers Toto Tsotsobe and Charles Mgweba were the team's most potent strike weapons behind the pack, allied to the goal kicking abilities of Norman Mbiko and Peter Swartz whilst forwards Broadness Cona,Liston Ntshongwana,Patsa Matyeshana and Morgan Cushe would serve the Leopards to particularly good effect.

1974 Match vs Lions

On 9 July 1974 the Leopards met the Lions on what would turn out to be the visitors' unbeaten tour of South Africa. The team was captained by hooker Thompson Magxala and included lock Liston Ntshongwana^[3] and Morgan Cushe at 8th Man. In their 10-56 loss to the Lions at Sisa Dukashe Stadium in Mdantsane, wing Charles Mgweba scored a try and Norman Mbiko succeeded with two penalties. Willie John McBride's side answered with 8 tries, one by scrum-half Gareth Edwards and a hat-trick by wing Tom Grace.^[4] The significance of Mgweba's try can be measured by the fact that the Springboks had not scored any tries in the two Tests that had been played against the Lions by that time.^[1]

Lineups:

Many of the 1974 Leopard team featured against the touring French side of June 1975 when the teams met in Mdantsane,East London in the Eastern Cape,the French emerging as comfortable winners, 39-9.The first official South African multi-racial team to play a foreign national side was the Invitation XV which included SARB's Toto Tsotsobe and Morgan Cushe.The Invitation XV beat the French at Newlands 18-3.

The touring All Blacks were the fifth touring overseas side to play against the Leopards.The fixture which took place in late August 1976 saw the New Zealanders running out comfortable winners 31-0 in Mdantsane.The Leopards side still contained seven of the line up which has featured against the 1974 British Isles side.

History will record that a SARA XV ,nominally a Leopards XV ,recorded a second defeat at the hands of the British and Irish Lions of 1980 by a margin of 6-28.Veteran flanker Morgan Cushe, who had played in the corresponding 1974 fixture captained the side although with a smattering of white Northern Transvaal and Western Province players beefing up the pack in accordance with the Lion's expressed wish to play multiracial sides,the team departed from what some at the time considered its African XV origins.

South African African Rugby Board

References