Siya Kolisi - Rise: The Brand New Autobiography

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

FIRST EDITION

Siya Kolisi 2021

Cover layout design by Clare Ward HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

Cover photograph Chris Joubert

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Source ISBN: 9780008431334

Ebook Edition October 2021 ISBN: 9780008431358

Version: 2021-09-13

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To my wife Rachel. I dedicate this book to you! Without you my story wouldnt be complete because you helped and keep helping me to be the man that Im striving to be every day. Your kindness, love, care, honesty and support have helped me to push through everything life has thrown at me. Thank you for your unconditional love and for loving my perfect imperfections.

To Nick and Keziah. Thank you for the gift of being your father. I hope one day you will look and see a father who was not perfect, but who loved you with the energy of a million suns and tried his best to set you up well for your own stories.

To Liyema and Liphelo. Thank you for giving me more to live for. Your strength and resilience encourage me to keep going despite any challenges and obstacles in my journey.

To my gran, aunt and mama. Honestly, I dont know where I would be without you all. You taught me the definition of the word sacrifice. I will forever be living to make you all proud in everything that I do.

There are several reasons why this book is called Rise. The title refers to my journey from a township childhood to captain of a World Cup-winning Springbok team, and also to the progress that I am working to bring about in my beloved South Africa. Most of all, however, rise is the English meaning of my mothers name Phakama. She is no longer here, but I hope she would be proud of me.

YOKOHAMA, JAPAN, 2 NOVEMBER 2019

Its not every day that the President himself addresses us before a match. Then again, its not every day that were playing in a World Cup Final.

Many people did not believe that you would come to this hour of destiny, says Tata. Most people know him as Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa, but to me hes just Tata. The room we are in is usually a place of noise and energy; its where team meetings are held, where last night the coaching staff handed out our jerseys one by one with hugs and words of encouragement. Now its so quiet I could hear a pin drop. But you are at that moment of destiny: for yourselves, as individual players, and for the country. Go out there on that pitch and play your hearts out. Play the best game that you have ever played.

Play the best game that you have ever played.

His words stay with me as we file out of the room, through the hotel lobby and onto the bus. I smile at the fans held back behind roped barriers, cheering and clapping as we come past. Their presence, and Tatas, remind me that back home the entire country will be watching. People of every race, colour and creed will for a few hours, all come together to will us on with every fibre of their beings.

The bus wends its way through the traffic. Everyones got their headphones on, lost in whatever music they use to help get themselves in the right frame of mind for such a momentous occasion. The stadium appears to our left, a hulking stone monolith swarming with green and white: our fans and Englands, spectators buzzing with the excitement of being at the match of a lifetime, people whove dropped everything and spent small fortunes to fly halfway round the world.

In through a side entrance, down to an underground area, off the bus and through the corridors to our dressing room, immaculately prepared by the logistics guys. We each have our own personal cubicle in which our kit is laid out, and on the big tables in the middle are trays of food: last-minute energy for anyone who wants it. A whiteboard in the corner has the warm-up times written on it, each one down to the minute: 17.09 kickers out, 17.14 hookers out, 17.21 props out.

The physios strap us up: ankles, knees, wrists, shoulders, heads, wherever we need it. Our coach Rassie Erasmus in the lucky white shirt that hes been wearing ever since we played Namibia in the pool stage, five straight wins ago and counting gives us one last team talk.

To be in a World Cup Final is a big thing. You might have been in the Currie Cup final: thats good. You might have been in a Super Rugby final: thats great. But a World Cup Final this is the one place where you cant have a regret. If you dont leave everything out there, youve wasted your whole lives leading up to this point. Coach Rassie pauses, careful as always to get his words exactly right. If you lose a lineout, jump up and go and make the next tackle. If you miss a tackle, jump up and go and do the next cleanout. If you miss a high ball, go up for the next one. You dont have the right to worry about your mistakes. If you worry about your mistakes, youre cocky, youve got an ego problem. Because youre not representing yourselves today. Its not about you.

He looks at me, coach to captain. You are fighting, Siya, for the next lightie in Zwide to not suffer like you suffered. A flash in my mind, no more, of a childhood during which leading my country in a World Cup Final seemed as remote and unlikely as walking on the moon. Coach Rassie turns to our outside centre Lukhanyo Am. Lukhanyo, you are tackling for the boy who didnt get the opportunities that you eventually got.

There are nods, murmurs of assent. Everyone agrees 100 per cent with what hes saying. Ive been playing rugby for 20 years schoolboy, age-group, provincial, franchise, international and Ive never played for a team as united in its desire to win as this one. From the moment Coach Rassie took over 18 months ago, he looked not just for good players but ones who have a bit of dog in them: men who refuse to give up, who go to the well for each other time and again, who always have each others backs. I trust each of them absolutely and completely.