that sent South Africa’s women into the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time,<\/a> was why.<\/p>\nAnd Hele, a destructive runner who has been one of the stars of the tournament, was happy to oblige.<\/p>\n
“When we finished playing [against France], I saw a big sign saying, ‘Hele, can I swap shirts with you?'” Hele told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“I asked him to come through, and I said I’d meet him at the gate when I came out.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t swap with any of the French girls because I had kept my shirt for him. And when I got there, he was waiting and smiling. That really warmed my heart. I thought ‘Aseza, you are doing good’.<\/p>\n
“I’ve inspired young boys, not just girls. It warmed my heart to make someone’s dream come true.”<\/p>\n
Once Hele finished that sentence, the tears started.<\/p>\n
That moment in Northampton signified how far not only Hele has come, but South African women’s rugby as a whole.<\/p>\n
Hele grew up in the same neighbourhood in Port Elizabeth as the Springboks’ two-time World Cup-winning men’s captain Siya Kolisi.<\/p>\n
A place she described as one where a lot of “deep, deep things” happen.<\/p>\n
Raised by her grandmother, Hele only started playing rugby in 2014, after joining a training session as a way to do some further running to stay fit for netball.<\/p>\n
An injury meant an extra player was needed, and Hele was told that whatever happens, “just go forward”. She hasn’t looked back since.<\/p>\n
A first Springbok cap came five years later, followed by her first World Cup appearance in 2022.<\/p>\n
“Rugby has changed my life. I am the person I am today because of where I came from and the choices I made,” she added.<\/p>\n
“Now, I’m able to feed my family because of rugby. I have my car because of rugby. My first flight was because of rugby.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t even dream of this, and now I’m playing with the big dogs, and I am the underdog.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Please, can my son swap jerseys with you? He speaks so highly of you, and it would be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-131797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}