One city — the seductive London — and the birth of two big South African kids, who in just two years could be adults at the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia.
This Saturday the Boks should beat Japan at London’s Wembley Stadium.
At Brentford’s Stadium in London it may not be as easy for John Dobson and Pat Lam’s Barbarians against an All Blacks XV.
But Dobbo has 17 South African-born players in the match 23, and plenty of other reserves, to do the business against the men in black.
The big story at Wembley is Zach Porthen, just 21 years old and the youngest tighthead prop to start for the Springboks in a Test match in the professional era.
At the Brentford Stadium, a beast, by the name of Batho Hlekani, will come off the bench in his ‘international’ debut. Porthen is 21; Hlekani is just 20 years old.
This is the quality of the juniors in South African rugby, who must parade as the next generation to back-to-back senior World Cup winners.
Call it what you want in London this weekend. Call it a triple-header, a festival of rugby because England’s men’s seniors host the Wallabies, but make no mistake — the headline act is South Africa’s youth movement stepping onto the biggest of stages.
This is Porthen’s day in a Bok jersey, and it’s Hlekani’s afternoon in black-and-white hoops, and together they frame the future of Springbok rugby with a swagger that feels inevitable.
Wembley is a statement in itself.
It has been a decade since the Miracle of Brighton, in 2015, when Japan beat the Boks 34-32 in a Pool match in the World Cup.
Porthen, back then, was a teenager. He may not even have known the significance of the impact of that result. This week he has been given an education, and it is among his debut challenges to ensure that there is no repeat.
He’s ticked every leadership box you could ask of a 21-year-old prop. Wynberg Boys High head prefect and first-team captain, SA Schools captain in 2022, Junior Springbok captain for the U20 Rugby Championship and the World Rugby U20 Championship in 2024. You don’t inherit armbands like that; you demand them with how you train, how you speak and how you deliver.
Western Province and the Stormers, under John Dobson, saw it early, and by October this year Rassie Erasmus had seen enough to pull him into the big room.
Porthen will be 23 and Hlekani 22 in 2027, but they are already on the international stage. How cool.
When Porthen runs out at Wembley, it won’t be a cameo, it will be an arrival of the next big thing in Springbok rugby for the next decade.
Now zoom across town to Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium, where the Barbarians meet an All Blacks XV.
If Porthen is the technician with a captain’s calm, Hlekani is the shockwave — six foot three, 115 kilos, a lock/flank hybrid who carries like a truck and hunts like a hyena. He’ll wear 19 or 20, but his impact won’t be a number, it’ll be a noise.
Hlekani’s story is South Africa at its best.
Born in Zwide — the same township that shaped Siya Kolisi —he started at Ndzondelelo High before moving to Graeme College, and every step he answered the higher ask: Craven Week, SA Schools, SA U20 in 2024 and 2025, and then straight into the broader Bok radar. He’s the player pundits describe with lazy clichés such as “raw” and “explosive” because he is so much more than that.
The kid is 20, but the game looks smaller when he arrives.
Porthen will be 23 and Hlekani 22 in 2027, but they are already on the international stage. How cool.
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