Springbok icons unite for global ball launch

Two Rugby World Cup-winning Springbok fly-halves told stories of resilience and thinking differently as Rhino rugby launched its seven-year-partnership with SA Rugby with a campaign by Sporting Eric.

Two-time world champion Handré Pollard, who lifted back-to-back World Cup trophies in 2019 and 2023, and Joel Stransky, the man who kicked South Africa to glory in the iconic 1995 final, both appear in the launch campaign, alongside fellow fly-halves Sacha Fienberg-Mngomezulu and Springbok Women’s Nadine Roos.

Sporting Eric’s hero video begins with Stransky talking about South Africa’s journey from an apartheid country to a fully unified nation, and the resilience that has driven the country to where it is today. “That’s maybe what makes us so different,” says Stransky, “we find a way to make it work, we find a way to make it happen. That resilience, that ability to win games we should have lost, creativity in this sense comes from finding a way.”

Concluding with a montage of Pollard, Fienberg-Mngomezulu and Roos in action with the new Rhino Vortex Pro, Rhino’s highest-spec match ball, Pollard voices: “We think differently, we do things others are scared to try. It’s what makes us different, it’s what makes us South African, it’s what makes us world champions.”

Already, the campaign has been gaining traction, appearing in print and online in national news and sports title, both in Europe and South Africa.

The new partnership deal will see Rhino’s elite-level match balls used for all of the Springbok men’s and women’s home internationals, as well as all SA Rugby-run competitions, including the Carling Currie Cup, one of the world’s most historic rugby tournaments.

Rhino is already being used in preparation for the Women’s Premier Division, which kicks off on Saturday 25th January 2025, where the brand will make its competitive debut. 

Sporting Eric has been working with Rhino, on both a UK and global scale for more than eight years, previously delivering campaigns such as Home of the Scrum, We Are Contact and the recent award-winning A Ball for the Planet.

If you’d like to find out more about this campaign or rugby storytelling by Sporting Eric, get in touch with Alex Mead at alex@sportingeric.com