Rugby mourns Mbiko's passing

Tributes are pouring in after the rugby fraternity learned of the passing of Norman Mbiko from Nyanga, a doyen of black rugby on a national level.

- AVRIL FILLIES

He served 20 years on the Chris Burger/Petro Jackson Fund and he developed the Sevens strategy and game plans.

The successes that the South African Sevens Teams are currently experiencing can be attributed to the structures, manuals and game plans Mbiko developed and put in place when he started to coach the SA Sevens' Team way after unification in 1992.

He took over the Sevens Team from the late Millin Petersen when all countries competed in the Melrose Sevens Tournament.

In 2018, Mbiko was honoured at a tribute dinner at the Zolani Multi Purpose Centre in Nyanga.

The former scrumhalf was then the only living black Springbok captain of the South African Rugby Association, also known as the Leopards, with its headquarters in the Eastern Cape.

Mbiko was 23, and still playing for the Flying Eagles and Western Province, when he was called to captain the African Springboks.

He was ahead of his age group for years and played for a WP Invitation XV as a 17-year-old in his debut and received his WP men's colours while still at Langa High School.

During Mbiko's last two years at school he was selected to the SA Schools team, alongside the likes of future fellow Springboks, right-wing Stanford Mzanywa and Eastern Province lock Meshack Morgan Cushe.

In 1965 and 1966, he played his first two Partons Cup tournaments, respectively in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Mbiko's rival was EP scrumhalf Wallace Xotyeni, but he himself was a bigger match winner because of a fanatical never-say-die competitiveness.