From meeting Mandela to playing for the land of his mother, Kyle Steyn certainly has a tale to tell.
Born in Johannesburg, he lived in South Africa for the first 24 years of his life. But then came a huge change as he moved over to the UK and joined Glasgow Warriors.
Eligible through family qualification, he has gone on to win 33 caps for Scotland, with his outstanding form on the wing during the recent Six Nations having seen him named in many people’s teams of the Championship, including the official one voted for by the public.
Now he finds himself back in South Africa, with Vodacom United Rugby Championship leaders Glasgow taking on the second-placed DHL Stormers in a huge top-of-the-table Cape Town clash this weekend. Looking back, he feels growing up in the Rainbow Nation played a big part in laying the foundation for his rugby journey.
“It’s the sheer numbers that are involved,” he says. “You are in an intensely competitive environment from a really young age. If you don’t work hard, it will just be the next guy in. That’s certainly something I took from growing up there. You are in the melting pot from the get-go because of the competitiveness of it and the numbers.”
Steyn also points to his parents as having been “massive role models”. His Glasgow-born mother Gillian moved to South Africa with her family when she was young and went on to be a teacher, while being the source of his Scotland qualification. His father, Rory, was a former policeman who became head of the presidential protection unit for Nelson Mandela in the mid 1990s.
As a result, the young Kyle found himself in the presence of the great man. “I was lucky enough to meet him a few times,” Steyn told The Rugby Pod. “The first time I don’t really remember. There’s a photo of it. I was only three or four and my dad put an All Blacks cap on my head. I have no idea why he did that!
“The last time I met Mr Mandela was when he had retired. I was maybe 11 or 12. He was still very busy, with so many people in and out, but he had so much time for you when you were with him. That’s something I will always remember.
“My dad was always blown away by his humility and the time he had for people. He was also blown away by the fact that he always made his own bed, no matter where he was, even when he was in Buckingham Palace. He wouldn’t let the housekeeping make his bed for him.”
Having studied at Stellenbosch University, Steyn went on to play for the Kimberley-based Griquas in the Currie Cup before making the life-changing move north in 2018 after signing with Scotland Sevens. That, in turn, led to a deal with Glasgow and the rest is history.
Such was the impact he made with the Warriors that he was called up to the Scotland squad within a year and made his Test debut against France during the 2020 Six Nations. “Because my mum was born here, I was really excited by the prospect of playing for Scotland,” he says. “I knew how proud she was of her Scottish heritage, while my grandad lived in South Africa from 1967 and yet to this day I can’t find a Glaswegian with a stronger accent than he had!”
Reflecting on how he approached throwing his lot in with Scotland and wearing the thistle on his chest, he says: “When you come into the squad, you feel you need to show everyone how much it means to you to have made this decision. You want to show them that you haven’t taken it lightly and you are going to give it everything, putting your body on the line.”
He continued: “The first time I heard the Scottish anthem, I was in South Africa watching a rugby game with my grandpa, which is a cracking memory. Then, when I came over, the first game I watched at Murrayfield, funnily enough, was Scotland against South Africa. I heard the anthem again then and I was looking at the guys on the field and thinking ‘How good must that be?’.
“That second verse, when it’s just the crowd singing, is by far the most powerful, the most alive you will feel as a Scottish rugby player. I went from being in the stands, trying to imagine what those guys were feeling like, to then making my debut at Murrayfield.
“The journey and the relationship you have with the anthem, going from imagining how alive you would feel to feeling that alive – you wish you could bottle it up to be able to open it up and experience it again. It’s just something you have got to relish every opportunity you get.”
Something else Steyn has come to relish is being Glasgow captain, a job he has done for four seasons now. “It’s something I grappled with in the beginning,” admits the 32-year-old.
“People were saying it was going to be really challenging from the wing. But I had calls set up for me with Brian O’Driscoll and Jean de Villiers, people who had captained from the back line. I chatted to Chris Paterson as well.
“Being on the wing forces you to rely on other leaders around you because you have to. You can’t play a rugby game and be running in from the wing every stoppage of play or trying to have that level of control or relationship with the referee and try and influence the game that way.
“It’s just not feasible. You would just drive yourself nuts shuttling between the ref and the touchline.
“I think that’s where I’m really lucky at Glasgow. Over the time I have been captain, we’ve developed a really good core of leaders, with the likes of Sione Tuipulotu, Rory Darge, Stafford McDowall, George Horne and Scott Cummings – guys that are real tactical leaders for us.
“I am someone that bounces off people around me and feeds off their energy. It has worked out well with me being on the wing because it has kind of forced me to do that.”
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