SA rugby's Top 10 Starboy Index

OPINION: Rugby365 contributor Mariette Adams identifies 10 young South African players who are taking the rugby world by storm this season.

There is very little that is certain in the world of rugby, but one thing that is guaranteed every season is the arrival of new young stars. And in South Africa, that pipeline never stops. These players are the product of the South African rugby conveyor belt doing what it always does – producing the next generation before the system needs them.

Some feature in the United Rugby Championship. Some are BlitzBoks already. Some will be Springboks before the year is out. They are the players who make you stop scrolling. The ones who get mentioned in group chats after each matchday. The ones fans cannot stop talking about and opponents cannot stop worrying about.

They are starboys by every metric and all of them are already worth your full attention.

Haashim Pead, 20 (Scrumhalf; Lions)

Where do you even begin with Haashim Pead? Let’s start with where he comes from: Bo-Kaap. One of Cape Town’s most culturally rich and tightly bonded communities, a neighbourhood that has produced fighters, artists and, now, a rugby player who is drawing comparisons with Antoine Dupont before he has even turned 21.

Pead left Bo-Kaap’s colourful streets for the Lions academy in 2024. He featured for the Junior Springboks in the U20 Rugby Championship and the World Rugby U20 Championship in 2024 and 2025. And it was at last year’s World Rugby U20 Championship where Opta recorded that he gained 232 metres from 15 carries in the pool stages alone – the most by any scrum-half in the competition’s recorded history.

The only name that was within reach of that number? Dupont, in 2016. Pead also scored five tries and assisted three, breaking the record for direct try involvement in the tournament. That is not an accident or a hot streak. That is a player operating at a level his age group simply could not handle.

But here is what really gets you about Pead. He is not just quick; he is smart too. He kicks with calculation, picks the right moment to run, plays the box-kick when it is needed and fires a long pass when it is not on.

He describes himself as wanting to blend the pace and attacking instinct of Cobus Reinach and Embrose Papier with the game-management coaches demand at the highest level. He has already backed that up on the field – his match-winning try for the Lions against the Sharks, coming off the bench with the clock in the red, was everything a starboy cameo should be.

He has since attended a Springbok alignment camp, signed with Roc Nation Sports International and drawn praise from former Bok scrumhalf Rudy Paige, who said plainly: “We are going to see Haashim Pead in a Springbok jersey sooner rather than later.”

The creed Pead lives by, ‘you play for more than just yourself’, will carry him a long way. He has the talent to back it up every step of the way.

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Haashim Pead 🏉✨

Off the bench to win it for the Lions 🦁🔴#SSRugby | #VURC pic.twitter.com/rTenwDzi3i

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) January 3, 2026

Gino Cupido, 21 (Wing/Utility Back; BlitzBoks, WP)

Gino Cupido is something else, isn’t he? He comes from Sir Lowry’s Pass – a small, tight-knit community between Somerset West and Grabouw that rugby scouts rarely visit.

The rugby world first got a proper look at Cupido when he debuted for the BlitzBoks at the 2025 Hong Kong Sevens. Within minutes of his first touch in international Sevens, he sprinted 95 metres to score against Uruguay. He admitted to watching the replay on his phone afterwards and asking himself: “Is that really me?”

He added three more tries in the tournament.

What makes Cupido special is that he is electric without being reckless. He reads space well, finishes calmly and plays with the kind of low centre of gravity and explosive first step that the Sevens game has sharpened beautifully. His Junior Boks record across the U20 World Championship season speaks for itself. He has all the tools – pace, footwork, composure – and at 21, has the world at his feet, as they say.

Jaco Williams, 20 (Wing; Sharks)

The comparisons to Cheslin Kolbe are not lazy journalism. Jaco Williams is genuinely built the same way – compact, low to the ground, deceptively fast and almost impossible to stop in a one-on-one.

The 20-year-old Sharks winger has that Kolbe-like quality of making defenders look like they are running in sand. He bounces off contact, accelerates through gaps nobody else identifies and consistently produces moments that make people in the stands sit up.

Williams has established himself at URC level as one of the most dangerous young backs in South Africa. He tackles hard, covers ground at fullback and carries with real intent from broken play. With Rassie Erasmus actively reviewing the left-wing options behind Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse, Williams has timed his emergence perfectly.

He is not a Kolbe copy. He is a properly formed wing in his own right who just happens to share a lot of the qualities that made Kolbe a back-to-back World Cup winner.

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He’s given you a glimpse and is back for more 🔥

Jaco returns from injury in the 15 jersey.@Vodacom #URC pic.twitter.com/vGbM0lLp3K

— The Sharks (@SharksRugby) May 7, 2026

Sibalwe Mahashe, 22 (Flanker; Lions)

Siba Mahashe does not make a lot of noise about himself. He just works. The 22-year-old Lions flanker from Hudson Park is the kind of player teammates rave about and coaches quietly build game plans around.

He is at the breakdown before most opponents know he is coming, his body position is almost always right and he competes with a discipline that players twice his age struggle to maintain for 80 minutes.

He made his senior debut against Lyon in the EPCR Challenge Cup and has been part of the Lions’ six-match unbeaten URC run, a sequence that has included wins over the Glasgow Warriors, Sharks and Stormers.

His teammates and coaches discuss him openly as a future captain.

Training and playing alongside Ruan Venter and Francke Horn, Mahashe says he absorbs everything around him and takes it directly back to his game on matchdays: ”Every training session is an opportunity to put yourself out there,” he has said.

At 22, with a ceiling this high, he means it.

Cheswill Jooste, 19 (Wing; Bulls)

Cheswill Jooste has pace that makes some professional rugby players look like they are standing still. The 19-year-old from Vredenburg on the West Coast scored a try for the Bulls recently that was described on a popular podcast as ‘watching a man run the bend in the 200 metres’. Twenty-nine other professional players on the field were made to look like they were barely moving.

Jooste progressed through the Bulls academy, starred at SA Schools level and has dazzled in the wider channels at URC level to the point where the Bulls held onto him, and he features on standby for the Junior Boks squad.

South African rugby has produced enough elite speed merchants – Habana, Aplon, Kolbe, Mapimpi, Arendse – for the country to know exactly what this kind of pace becomes at the highest level. Jooste is 19. He already makes people giddy. That alone tells you everything.

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The Vodacom Bulls create a try out of nothing 🤩✨

Cheswill Jooste brings the visitors right back into this match with just over 10 minutes to play ⏱️

📺 Stream #InvestecChampionsCup on DStv: https://t.co/0P0NNhnwKw pic.twitter.com/mvnD97q3UI

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) January 16, 2026

Markus Muller, 18 (Centre; Stormers)

Here is a sentence that needs a moment to sink in: Markus Muller is 18 years old and has already been invited to a Springbok alignment camp. Eighteen. Let that land.

Fresh out of Paarl Gimnasium, the midfielder was called into the Bok camp alongside senior squad members; it’s the type of call that Rassie Erasmus does not make for the sake of it.

Last month, Stormers coach John Dobson handed him his debut against the Glasgow Warriors, making Muller the youngest player in the franchise’s history at 18 years, nine months and 19 days, beating Damian Willemse’s record by a matter of weeks.

He came on with 14 minutes to go against a Warriors side containing British & Irish Lions midfield stars Huw Jones and Sione Tuipulotu. And yet, his defence was the standout feature; composed, positionally correct, and never flustered for a moment.

“He’s the happiest kid in the world,” Dobson beamed afterwards.

The Bok camp invitation, the debut composure and the Junior Springboks selection alongside Ethan Adams all point in one direction. The next great South African centre might be wearing a Stormers jersey.

Zekhethelo Siyaya, 18 (Centre; Sharks)

Zekhethelo Siyaya grew up in Paulpietersburg in rural northern KwaZulu-Natal, arrived at Westville Boys’ High as a shy kid whose talent was obvious but whose size concerned people, and is now playing URC rugby mere months after finishing his matric exams. That trajectory is ridiculous in the best possible way.

At school, he scored 17 tries in 16 matches across school, provincial and national appearances in 2024. He turned out for the Sharks at Craven Week last year and was later selected in the SA Schools squad.

He bagged a hat-trick for SA Schools against SA Schools A and a brace for SA U18 against Ireland U18.

His 1st XV coach at Westville, Njabulo Zulu, put it simply: “He’s a great runner, a wonderful distributor and can kick 50 metres.”

When the Sharks threw him into his URC debut against the Ospreys in Bridgend, he responded with the kind of performance that makes you wonder why people ever had doubts. Sharp footwork, aerial dominance, a big boot off both feet and the composure to step into first-receiver roles mid-game.

After the game against the Ospreys, Sharks coach JP Pietersen was full of praise. The hype, for once, is entirely earned.

Luan Giliomee, 19 (Utility Back; Sharks)

When fully fit and in form, Luan Giliomee is the kind of youngster that would make Erasmus reach for his notebook. The 19-year-old from Charlie Hofmeyr High covers scrumhalf, flyhalf and fullback with genuine competence across all three positions. Not as a jack-of-all-trades emergency option, but as a player who genuinely understands multiple pictures on the rugby field simultaneously.

In a previous piece, Rugby365 drew comparisons between him and All Blacks great Christian Cullen for his awareness, flair, speed and defensive commitment.

His Sharks debut against Munster produced a try, two try assists and a composed territorial kicking game that had coach Pietersen using the word “special” in the post-match conference.

His BlitzBoks experience sharpened the footwork and quick decision-making that 15-man rugby requires in tight situations. South Africa already has Aphelele Fassi and Damian Willemse in the fullback pecking order, but Giliomee offers something different; positional range that neither of them carries.

A current injury means he misses the U20 Rugby Championship, but the trajectory is unmistakable. Keep an eye on this one.

Kai Pratt, 19 (Loosehead prop; Sharks)

Front-rowers rarely appear on lists like this. Kai Pratt earns his place. The 19-year-old from Stilbaai – a surfer’s town on the Southern Cape coast – is a product of the Sharks academy.

He was the standout schoolboy loosehead prop in South Africa in 2025, earning SA Schools selection and drawing admiring glances from every union’s coaching staff at Craven Week. But even years before that, he earned selection for the SWD’s U13 Craven Week squad when he was just 10 years old.

He scrummages with a low body position and carries powerfully in the tight exchanges that established forwards take years to master.

The clearest signal of how the Springbok management team view him came when Erasmus invited him to a Springbok alignment camp in Cape Town alongside Muller and other Junior Bok prospects.

Those invitations are not courtesy calls. Pratt is on the Bok radar at 19 and the Sharks are already integrating him properly into their professional structures. From Stilbaai’s surf to the scrumming coal face of the URC, that is a starboy journey worth following.

Ethan Adams, 19 (Centre; Lions)

Grey College has a tradition of producing centres who go on to represent South Africa, and Ethan Adams continues that tradition convincingly.

The 19-year-old has already featured for the Lions in Currie Cup action, toured Georgia with the Junior Boks – where South Africa won both matches comfortably – and is being discussed seriously alongside Muller as the long-term Springbok midfield duo.

They have trained together, they have played together – are currently playing together for the Junior Boks – and the early signs of a developing understanding are already there.

Adams plays inside or outside centre with equal comfort, distributes well off both hands, carries hard in contact and defends with a physicality that backs up everything he does with ball in hand.

As was evident in his performance for the Baby Boks against Argentina in Round One of the U20 Rugby Championship, he is not the flashy type. He does not beat five defenders with step-overs. He is efficient, reliable, plays the right option at the right moment and consistently makes the people around him look better.

That sounds remarkably like the profile of every great Springbok centre this country has produced. The Junior Springboks squad for the World Rugby U20 Championship is his next stage. Watch him there, because the steps after that will come quickly.