With the great Springbok captain Siya Kolisi set to become the ninth player to reach 100 Tests in green and gold, we look back on his debut match way back in 2013, as well as his 50th as he prepares to further enhance his incredible rugby legacy.
Test debut versus Scotland at Mbombela Stadium, June 2013
On 15 June 2013 in Mbombela, one day shy of his 22nd birthday, a fresh-faced Kolisi benched for Heyneke Meyer’s Boks in their second game of that year’s one-off quadrangular tournament. which also featured Samoa, Italy and their opponents on the day, Scotland. The hosts were heading into the clash off the back of a comfortable 44-10 defeat of the Azzurri in Durban the week prior in a game that saw another future Bok centurion, Willie Le Roux, make his first appearance for the side.
Sporting inarguably one of the Boks’ sleekest kits, white with a lumo green Canterbury chest emblem and stripes on each arm, Meyer’s team were expected to collect a similarly convincing win against a Brave Hearts outfit shorn of star players Richie Gray, Sean Maitland and Stuart Hogg who were then touring Australia with the British & Irish Lions.
While the young Kolisi may have been expecting to get a late run in the second-half of the encounter, an injury to luckless starting flanker Arno Botha with just four-minutes and six-seconds on the clock meant the Stormers loosie was thrust into the action an hour or two earlier than he would have anticipated.
With the number 20 on his back, Kolisi jogged onto the pitch and proceeded to produce an absolute blinder, translating his red-hot Super Rugby form to the Test arena and making a number of electric carries that were then one of the focal points of his game. Meyer’s side went on to win 30-17, with the Grey High Old Boy being named Man of the Match and becoming a feature in every Bok squad since.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLIgiKeBV6E
50th Test versus England at Yokohama Stadium, Rugby World Cup final, 2 November 2019
Believe it or not, Kolisi notched up his half-century of caps in the 2019 Rugby World Cup final against England in a match that surely remains at the forefront of the minds of most South African rugby supporters. The Boks went into the game as underdogs after Eddie Jones’ side’s fantastic 19-7 semi-final defeat of the All Blacks, but what followed was a Rassie Erasmus masterclass as the Kolisi-led team went on to batter England into submission and match New Zealand’s then record of three World Cup titles.
Kolisi made 13-tackles in that encounter as well as some exceptional leadership decisions in combination with the rest of the side’s senior statesmen before he was subbed off in the 64th-minute for Francois Louw. The images of Kolisi hoisting the Web Ellis Cup for the first time in the aftermath of that eventual 32-12 win have become some of the most enduring in South African sport – with, as it turned out, plenty more to follow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hl8-UlpnLQ
100th Test versus France at Stade de France, 8 November 2025
When he takes to the Stade de France pitch in Paris this weekend, Kolisi will join an elite list that already includes Eben Etzebeth, Victor Matfield, Bryan Habana, Tendai Mtawarira, John Smit, Jean de Villiers, Percy Montgomery, and Willie le Roux.
Having already led the national team to back-to-back World Cup crowns, a British & Irish Lions series and two Rugby Championship titles, the achievement of reaching 100-Tests will only add to one of the greatest Bok legacies in history, and a win against the side’s beaten 2023 RWC quarterfinalists would make it even sweeter.
