Springbok secrets revealed

Cape Town – Victor Matfield dyes his beard and Bismarck du Plessis phones his mother every evening at 20:10.

These are some of the secrets of the Springboks that have been revealed by Sarie magazine shortly before the team's departure for New Zealand.

Bakkies Botha: "Few people know that Victor Matfield dyes his beard. His age is catching up with him and now he has plenty of grey hairs in his beard. We tease him about it, but he just laughs it off."

Jean de Villiers: "Schalk Burger is a decent guitarist and wanted to play in a band while he was at school. Oh, and he walks around naked in the bedroom."

Schalk Burger: "Our parents are friends and our fathers went to school together. Jean and I also went to school together at Paarl Gymnasium. Even if we didn't play rugby together, we would probably still have been friends. And would you believe that Jean's mother was my mother's PT teacher?"

Jannie Du Plessis: "Bismarck is a real mama's boy. He talks to our mom, Jo-Helene, every night at 20:10. If he's at an event and unable to phone her, he'll sms her."

Bismarck Du Plessis: "Jannie is crazy about MasterChef Australia. It's almost the only thing on TV that he watches. Before each game we eat the same meal – spaghetti bolognaise – because we did it once and played well afterwards.

Read the full article in the October issue of Sarie.