Firewoman to international star – Zenay Jordaan’s story
Zenay Jordaan is arguably the greatest female rugby union player in South African history. With an international career spanning 13 years – and counting – the fly-half is undoubtedly one of the most experienced. Next year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup, in New Zealand, will be her third, if selected. That would equal the number of Rugby World Cup Sevens tournaments in which she has featured.
However, the 28-year old’s oval-ball dreams would have been extinguished long ago, had fate not intervened. Indeed, an alternative path as a firewoman in Middleburg – the farming town in Mpumalanga province in the Eastern Cape where she was born and raised – was in the offing.
That prospect was hosed away, though, by a surprising and life-changing telephone call to Jordaan from the South African Rugby Union (SARU) in 2014, six years after making her international bow, aged 17. The SARU, determined to boost the women’s game, was offering full-time professional contracts to 15 players for the first time. And even then, the star playmaker, possibly still in disbelief, was unsure about whether or not to commit fully to rugby.
“When the SARU called out of the blue to ask me to join the new sevens programme, I was a few weeks into my training to become a firewoman, for the Middleburg Fire and Rescue Services,” she tells Planet Rugby. “It was a dilemma, and I had to discuss my answer with my parents. I didn’t know that it would be the right decision to leave my job for rugby. We decided that I had to follow my passion, and I must say I don’t have any regrets.”
There was no surprise that Jordaan’s sports-mad mother and father supported the choice to accept the SARU’s contract. Her mother had been a provincial table-tennis player in her youth, but it was father Wilfred who ignited Zenay’s interest for rugby from childhood. He had been a player for Eastern Province, and she recalls being regularly woken up “in the middle of the night” to watch big international matches on television with him.
The rugby ball gifted to young Zenay by her father was her most prized possession. She was the only girl to participate in the rugby games on her street, when often a tatty tennis ball was used as a poor substitute for an oval ball. On reflection, Jordaan admits she was mean to keep her rugby ball indoors. “I just didn’t want the boys to play with it,” she says with a grin.
At school, Jordaan was again the old girl playing rugby, and it was not until she joined local women’s club Middleburg Stormers, in 2005, that her undeniable talent was honed – albeit with pitifully limited resources – alongside members of the same sex. The club, she recalls, had just a solitary rugby ball (not the one owned by her) to train with. “We accepted the situation and worked with what we had – we didn’t have a choice,” Jordaan says.
That determined, make-do attitude came in handy when she was selected, in 2008, for South Africa’s sevens team, because the facilities were not much better. The players didn’t have access to a gym, used makeshift weights to build muscle, and would meet irregularly, mostly a just for a couple of days on the eve of a tournament. It was challenging, but the players revelled in their lack of resources and preparation. And it’s not for nothing that the side’s nickname is “Imbokodo”, the Zulu word for “a rock”. (The saying goes “Wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo”, meaning “you strike a woman, you strike a rock”.)
Given the uncertain and under-resourced state women’s rugby in South Africa, one can understand why, after years of hardship, Jordaan had embarked upon a new career with Middleburg Fire and Rescue Services. Thankfully, the fateful call from SARU six years ago enabled her to fan the flames of her sporting passion. Since then, investment, support and opportunities have all markedly improved for South Africa’s female rugby players.
The women now live and train all year round at the same base as the Blitzbokke, the men’s sevens squad, and pick up expert tips from their male counterparts, who are only too happy to assist. And, in another landmark moment, last December the Imbokodo team, featuring Jordaan, was invited to take part, for the first time in history, in a top-tier international sevens tournament – on home soil, to boot – at the HSBC Cape Town Sevens. “It was an awesome feeling, playing in front of so many of our fellow South Africans,” she says.
Pleasingly, at the end of March, the team will play again in South Africa: in Stellenbosch, as part of the HSBC Challenger Series – a new competition designed to boost rugby sevens’ development across the globe.
HSBC deserves great credit for creating a more gender-equal game. Consider that the inaugural HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series had only four legs – half the number compared to this season. Also, most of the 11 core teams in the women’s competition have full-time professionals (in 15-a-side rugby, many nations are still playing catch up on that front).
Wilfred Jordaan will be in the crowd in Stellenbosch cheering his daughter on, as the team aims to qualify for next season’s HSBC World Rugby Women’s World Sevens Series. And given Jordaan’s good fortune and determined attitude, who would bet against the Imbokodo breaking into sevens’ top-tier – if not now, very soon?
After all, interest in rugby is sky-high in South Africa, following the men’s Rugby World Cup success towards the end of last year. “That win reunited our country,” says Jordaan of the victory in Japan. “The team achieved something very positive and quite amazing. Ultimately, it showed what can be possible with hard work and commitment.”
Hard work and commitment are the two key facets of the fly-half’s personality. And South African should be thankful that she is still setting rugby pitches alight, metaphorically, rather than literally putting out fires.
Image credit – Kyle Kinglsey Green