Springboks’ jersey leaves some with the blues

Despite the Springboks’ bold win in their first game at the Rugby World Cup against Scotland, some supporters were unhappy about the blue jersey the players wore on Sunday instead of the green and gold one. 

The defending rugby world champions made an impressive entrance to the tournament, beating Scotland 18-3. However, the blue alternate jersey — officially the colour, manufacturers Nike say, is “hyper-jade” — they wore attracted some negative comments from supporters on social media. 

The Boks wore the blue as part of a World Rugby ruling, which has been adopted for the World Cup, that prevents two teams wearing a dark colour. The regulation benefits people suffering from colour vision deficiency (CVD), or colour blindness, as TimesLIVE previously reported.

Assistant coach Mzwandile Stick, responding to criticism of the jersey, said ahead of the win against Scotland that the team had a good record playing in the jersey. The World Cup game in Marseille was the second time the Boks wore the blue jersey, having sported it first it in their away win against Argentina last month.

“It's our away jersey and we made peace with it a long time ago. We actually like the jersey. You cannot fault it, the record under the jersey now is 100%. There is positive energy about it,” Stick said. 

Centre Jesse Kriel said the jersey colour was “exciting” and different.

Here are some reactions from social media: