When Sanele Nohamba hears that people may want to Google his home village of KwaMavuso in the Eastern Cape to find out more about where he comes from, he laughs. “Good luck finding it,” he says. But while his village may still be largely unknown, the same cannot be said for Nohamba following a breakthrough season in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.

This week the Emirates Lions star was named the URC Player of the Season for his standout performances at scrumhalf and flyhalf in a season where the Johannesburg team came close to making the playoffs for the first time.

Nohamba’s creative brilliance was a mainstay of the Lions’ challenge this season as he also played his way into the Springbok conversation.

And for the 25-year-old Nohamba, everything about his love for this game can be traced back to family and that same village where a six-year-old boy first fell in love with rugby.

“I was six years old when I first went to watch some club rugby in my village. I remember being on the side of the field and watching my uncles and brothers play village club rugby. That’s my earliest rugby memory. I think what hooked me immediately was the idea of family. My uncles played, my brothers played, my dad played, and that’s the influence it had on me. The conversations around the house where all about rugby. It was great growing up there. I didn’t know much about life outside the village, and I still have friends that I’m good mates with in the village,” he says.

But it was in fact cricket that first led Nohamba away from his village and started opening the doors to a future in professional sport.

“I played both cricket and rugby at my primary school in Alice. I was maybe a bit better at cricket than rugby. I then got an opportunity to go to Dale College Boys’ Primary School for the year. Then I received another opportunity to go to Durban High School.”

When it came to eventually choosing between cricket and rugby, the theme of family and rugby’s brotherhood comes through again.

“It wasn’t too hard to decide between cricket and rugby. If you compare the vibe around schoolboy rugby compared to cricket, that made the decision easy for me when I was 16. The war cries and so on. I also got invited to the SA Under-16 High Performance Camp for rugby, so it wasn’t too hard a decision.”

Nohamba has long been a rising star of the game, but this season he took a definite step up with an even greater focus on differentiating himself.

“I took my preparation heading into every game more seriously. I was more specific about it, so that going into each game I was quite confident in almost knowing what was going to happen or what opportunities may present themselves. I put more emphasis on my pre-game preparation this season. I was also just living in the moment this season. I just enjoyed the campaign week by week and the different challenges and I didn’t look too far ahead.”

As for his ability to pull off moments of genius in matches, Nohamba credits his father for this.

“My dad was also a flyhalf and he gave me the advice to always play the space. Sometimes you can get so fixated on trying to execute your play, but if the space is in front of you, you might as well pull the trigger and play the space in front of you.”

For now, Nohamba is looking forward to some downtime away from the game and recharging with family and friends.

“Of course, I have the very obvious goal of becoming a Springbok. That’s the next one for me. But for now, I just want to put my feet up and spend time with my family. The best thing about going back to my village is the environment. You can breathe clean air again.”

Spoken like a man who himself has been a breath of fresh air in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship this season.

The post Nohamba puts his village KwaMavuso on the map appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.

Src: sarugbymag.co.za