The Dreadlocked Flyer Spicing Up Rugby

- Nick Said

Speedster Seabelo Senatla is the leading Sevens rugby player in the world but is now taking aim at glory in the 15-man game as he targets a first cap for South Africa’s Springboks this season with one eye on the 2019 World Cup in Japan.

A young Senatla dreamed of being an Olympic sprinter and idolized American 100-meters star Marion Jones, but it is with the oval ball in hand where he has risen to global fame and achieved his aim of appearing at the Olympics.

Athletics was always his first love, with a passion for rugby only coming once he had left school, but it still satisfies his need for speed.

“I loved Jones,” Senatla tells FORBES AFRICA. “After every race of hers I watched, I would go outside and mimic her running, trying to be as fast as I could.”

“I remember later, at nine years old, going out with my dad, who had plastic bags that he would use to simulate the sound of a starter’s pistol, and I would be off, fast as I could.”

“I just love running, still to this day. It was always my dream to run the 100-meters at the Olympics. I feel so free when I’m running; I imagine like a horse must feel when they are in full gallop.”

Senatla is already the leading try-scorer in Springbok Sevens history with 189 and the 24-year-old says that having made the switch to 15s, he will not be lost to that format completely, with the 2018 Commonwealth Games and the next Olympics in Tokyo in 2020 to look forward to.

But, in between those tournaments is the chance for the dreadlocked try-machine to be a part of the Bok squad that competes in the 15-man World Cup in two years’ time having taken up his contract with South Africa’s Cape Town-based Stormers Super Rugby franchise this season.