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Nicks helps us in the garden on Fridays. He works energetically, with a smile and a love for plants and the soil. We usually speak about compost, regenerative agriculture, and his football matches. I try to speak isiXhosa. He speaks much better English back. He gives Clementine a hug when he arrives and takes her for a walk before he leaves. Her tail wags when he arrives.

Our relationship deepened after Covid. We paid him when he couldn’t come to work. It was the right thing to do, and we could afford it. I suppose it was a kind of reciprocation beyond payment. He had been working for us before, but we hadn’t really given him anything before besides some clothes and a bicycle for his son that we weren’t using anymore.

This morning we spoke about the Rugby World Cup Final when the Springboks are playing the All Blacks. Nicks was on point on all the current facts and stats. We had been listening to the same podcasts and debated the merits of 7-1 split for almost as long as Jacques and Rassie said they did. This team means a lot to him. Perhaps more even than the Kaizer Chiefs. Probably more than Bafana Bafana in current form. This is because Siya is the captain, Bongi is our hooker, Lukanyo is the best in the world and Mapimpi scored our first try in a World Cup Final. They are also from the Eastern Cape. He is going to watch at home with his family.

This team means a lot to me too. I cried when the Springboks won the 2019 World Cup. They weren’t those soft romantic movie tears either. They were hard tears. I cried again, every time I watched the rerun. Again, when I watched the documentary ‘Chasing the Sun.’ I am deeply invested in this team and wonder why this means so much to us. I think it goes beyond the purpose that fans derive from any sports club.

The Springboks are South African culture. They are the only thing we truly have in common alongside braais and violence. At its core, this is a desperation for a national solution and a realization that one is staring us in the face.

When Rassie said the Boks play for the people back home (to give them hope), I think what this team have discovered is that by embracing their diversity as a weapon, the Springboks have shown us what the best of South Africa can be. What the best of any country can be. This is what Nelson Mandela saw in 1995. It is how we can roll back the storm clouds to reveal our true rainbow.

It’s important because I don’t want to live anywhere else, and I am desperate for us to find a solution. I love talking to Nicks in broken isiXhosa and gitaring to the Gwijo quad. I am also so tired of the moaning. The world should be equally desperate for some kind of plan on how different people can work successfully together given what is happening in Ghaza and Ukraine.

This team defines diversity. An eighth-generation wine farmer’s son from Riebeek-Kasteel is beating the world next to an orphan from the Eastern Cape. A boy from Zwide is packing down with his best mate – the breeker from Bellville. Research has proved that diversity improves teams in business. And there is no doubt that the variety in this team makes it far better. Nippy wingers and monsters in the scrum who may as well have grown up on different planets. But what Victor Frankel discovered in Auschwitz is what mankind really needs is meaning and purpose. This team has both, in spade fills.

Siya Kolisi is currently one of the most impressive humans on earth. He is a humble leader who deflects praise onto his teammates and his coaches and compliments his opponents while refusing to criticize match officials. Compare him to his counterparts from England and France.

Perhaps he is just practising what he preaches?

I know politics is a poisoned chalice, but, once he has lifted the Cup this evening, I want him to be our President, as the leader of a new party that embraces all the learnings from the Springbok journey. He has the tools to finally bring us together As the multi-faceted world beaters that we have the talent to become. With Rassie and Jacques running the AI models and the traffic lights in the background. And Stick as vice with Eben as Minister of Defense. Nicks and I will take care of the Company Gardens.

Nicks, ubhuti wam, I pray that we win. But even if we don’t, this team have shown us the way, again.