Springbok captain Siya Kolisi believes the quota system does more harm than good and he’s confident that iconic former president Nelson Mandela would have been in his corner on the matter.

“I wouldn’t want to be picked because of my skin colour,” South Africa’s first black captain said in an interview with Kyodo News in December. “You shouldn’t put a number on something like that.”

SA Rugby satisfied government demands that teams must mirror the country’s demographics by drawing up the Strategic Transformation Plan in 2015. The plan includes escalating, non-negotiable targets to ensure the Bok squad chosen for the 2019 Rugby World Cup is 50-percent black.

“I don’t think (Mandela) would have supported that,” added Kolisi. “All he cared about was a better South Africa.”

— Staff Writer