Brittany Mitchell, ESPN Assistant EditorOct 14, 2024, 12:17 AM ET
CloseBrittany Mitchell has been a sports fan from an early age, with a keen interest in netball, cricket and rugby. Brittany interned at Rugby Magazine and the Australian Rugby Union before joining ESPN.
He’s the biggest name in men’s rugby, has over one million Instagram followers and has called on men around the world to follow him on jumping on the women’s rugby bandwagon.
Springboks captain and two-time World Cup winner Siya Kolisi is a women’s rugby fan. Spotted in full Springbok women’s kit watching South Africa take on the Wallaroos a week ago, he soon visited Wales in camp before he later handed out jerseys to the Australia team ahead of their final match of the WXV2 tournament.
“When you have a platform, it is how many people can you take with you? It is not just about you,” he said on The Good, The Scaz and The Rugby podcast.
He’s exactly right.
There’s no growth within the women’s game without the full support of the rugby community, and that includes the men who currently enjoy the riches of the game at the top.
“Where I come from when someone struggles, you help,” Kolisi said. “The girls are playing the same sport as me and they need the help right now, so I go and help. That is how I was raised.
“Without my community I wouldn’t be here, without my grandmother and aunt I wouldn’t be the person I am today.”
It’s a far cry from what was witnessed only last year when only Rob Leota ventured up the road from Wallabies training camp to watch the Wallaroos take on the Black Ferns in front of their biggest crowd. Or in 2022 when the Waratahs men made a quick escape from Melbourne following their Super Round loss to the Chiefs before their women’s team competed in the Super W grand final the next afternoon.
Kolisi’s support hasn’t been tokenistic either.
Speaking to the Wales squad at their hotel after prop Sisilia Tuipulotu reached out over social media, Kolisi then surprised the Wallaroos side at their jersey presentation. He not only knew the players’ names but also recalled moments of their game he’d witnessed the week previously.
Siya Kolisi of South Africa poses for a picture with the Italian team during the WXV 2 Johan Rynners – World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images
“I think that’s incredibly special, someone of Siya’s backing in the rugby world and just global communities is really special,” Wallaroos captain Michaela Leonard told reporters following the side’s WXV2 title.
“For him to come in over the last couple of weeks and show a genuine interest, know our players by name, know what their strengths are, know what they’ve done in recent games, to turn up on a week off after a long campaign himself with the Springboks, I think that’s pretty special.
“It sends a cool message to the rest of the world that there’s something exciting happening in the women’s space in rugby at the moment. We’ve seen that with competitions like WXV starting up, more games across the globe, more teams added to the World Cup next year, it’s a really exciting spot and it’s moving forward quite fast.
“For him to get on board and support it, to call out to the rest of the world to get behind us as well, it’s really special, and hopefully, it’s caught a couple of eyes and everyone else is ready to stick around for the journey.”
Women’s rugby as a whole has witnessed a significant rise over the past two years following a hugely successful World Cup in New Zealand, and the creation of the WXV series has only further catapulted the women’s game forward with hopes next year’s World Cup in England will rise to a level never seen before.
The growth of the women’s game couldn’t come at a more important time either with the game of rugby as a whole continuing to battle for a place in the ever-growing sporting market. It only makes sense for the men of rugby to jump on the bandwagon now and take the women’s game to higher levels.
As Kolisi so succinctly put it: “If we help the women’s game grow, it means rugby is growing, more are playing and exposed to rugby – we are all benefiting and eating out of it.”
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