Knysna's first Springbok captain

Update

KNYSNA NEWS - Born-and-raised Knysnarian Mathrin Simmers has been named as co-captain of the Springboks Women's Sevens (Imbokodo) team for the Rugby World Cup Sevens 2022, to be held in Cape Town this weekend.

This means that although she has been stand-in captain on occasion before, Simmers is the first-ever Knysnarian to officially be named captain of a Springbok team in either men's or women's rugby.

Simmers is by far the most experienced player in the squad that Imbokodo coach Paul Delport named ahead of the RWC7.

Having made her debut for Imbokodo at the age of 24 in 2012, Simmers – now 34 – has been representing the SA Women's Sevens team consistently in the decade since.

She has racked up an impressive tally of 14 World Series tournaments over the years, and this year will be her third RWC7 appearance – the only player in the squad to play in three sevens world cups.

To provide context as to how significant Simmers' number of World Series tournaments is, the player with the second-most World Series tournaments in the squad is Zintle Mpupha – she's played in six, less than half that of Simmers.

Simmers has also scored 35 points in World Series tournaments for Imbokodo, making her the third-highest points scorer in the world cup squad.

Delport is looking forward to what lies in wait for his team. The Springbok Women's Sevens will open their campaign against France in the second-last game on Friday evening, and Delport said they are not looking past that encounter.

"We are focused internally and want to make sure we play that game with clarity among the group," said Delport. "You only get to play a Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament in your own country once and we hope to make the best of it."

On his decision of naming co-captains, Delport said, "Home tournaments create a lot of extra pressure on our captains and we want to spread the workload in that regard and also wanted to make sure we have a captain on the field all the time.

Mathrin and Sizo [Sizophila Solontsi] are both experienced campaigners and leaders and will complement each other in that regard."

While she's gone on to bigger and better things, Simmers' roots lie in Knysna, having grown up in Concordia.

Mathrin Simmers hard at work in training. Photo: SA Rugby

She was a founding member of the Titans Women's Rugby Academy which has produced a number of Springbok women's players - both in the sevens and fifteens formats. She was selected to play for the South Western Districts (SWD) EaGirls team in 2006 and again in 2007, but only started playing for the EaGirls towards the end of 2008 as part of their sevens team and in 2009 she played for their senior women's side.