After spending much of his formative years doing the hard yards at Moroka Swallows, Lions centre Wandisile Simelane has moved from football to rugby.

Simelane, 24, now plays for the Johannesburg-based Lions in the United Rugby Championship (URC) and is one of SA Rugby’s hot prospects.

The talented backline player was named SA Rugby Young Player of the Year in 2021, a sign that he is destined for great things in the sport.

However, the Soweto-born star has revealed to TimesLIVE that rugby hasn’t always been his sport of choice as he thought he was going to be a big football star.

Simelane, who has always been a talented sportsperson as a youngster, said that changed when he was awarded a rugby scholarship at Jeppe High School for Boys after being recognised by Ronald White.

“I wanted to play football, but after I got the scholarship at Jeppe my dad said, ‘listen you have an opportunity to study for free and play rugby or you can go pay your school fees and play soccer',” Simelane said.

“The obvious financial decision for my parents was for me to take the scholarship opportunity I had. That’s how I got into rugby.

“Back then I would have easily chosen soccer, but now I’ve fallen in love with the sport [rugby], but then I was a big Kaizer Chiefs supporter.

“When you are growing up in Soweto, when you wake up in the morning you think about playing soccer with your friends,” he said.

The player joins a list of SA players who made a switch to rugby, including Sharks duo Aphelele Fassi and Sanele Nohamba, who had promising careers as cricketers.

At Swallows, Simelane played as a central midfielder with the hope of one day representing Bafana Bafana and the dream to don national team colours is still alive as he is fighting for a Springboks call up.

Simelane and his teammates have found the going tough in the URC, but the player said there’s still a lot for them to play for in their remaining three matches against international teams from Europe.

“We’ve learnt a lot as a team playing up north where it’s 2°C in Ireland. It’s very different to 30°C at Ellis Park. We’ve learnt a lot, but we are disappointed that we can’t make the play-offs because of our loss against the Sharks.

“But ja, we just want to finish strong, finish in the top 10 this season and reach the play-offs in the next year," he said.

The 12th-placed Lions play 10th-placed Connacht of Ireland at Ellis Park on Saturday (4.05pm).

After that, the Lions will host Benetton of Italy and Welsh side the Dragons in their final match of the round-robin format.

TimesLIVE

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