He's A Natural!

Try-scoring Bok Makazole Mapimpi clawed his way to the top the hard way – with passion, self-belief and grit.

- Siyabonga Dzimbili

HE’S been described as a try-scoring machine on a par with Bryan Habana and dubbed “a natural-born predator” by former Bok Breyton Paulse.

Punters have predicted Makazole Mapimpi will be the top try scorer of the Rugby World Cup, a belief the 29-year-old winger helped along by scoring two tries in South Africa’s 57-3 drubbing of Namibia in Japan recently.

The tries followed the hat-trick he scored in a pre-World Cup game against the Japanese – three sizzling tries that helped the Springboks to a 41-7 victory over the team that humiliated them in the previous world cup.

Sportswriters didn’t waste time liking Mapimpi to Habana: he was the first South African to cross the line three times since Habana in the 2015 World Cup and his performance put his strike rate at eight tries in eight matches.

Making the Sharks point-scoring maestro all the more remarkable is the fact his road to glory wasn’t honed on the fields of a top-notch school. There were no coaches dedicated to bringing out the best in this young player and no Craven Week selection for him.

Mapimpi’s story is one of grit, passion and sheer self-belief.

Rugby was always his number one focus at school so after the bell rang each day he’d make the commute from Jim Mvabaza Secondary School in King William’s Town to East London, where he’d train his heart out with friends who went to school in the town.

His hard work paid off and in 2009 he started playing for the Border Bulldogs.

He’s always been great at the game, he tells DRUM matter-of-factly, and from an early age, he’d be pitted against senior players because of his natural flair.