The player in question is Hacjivah Dayimani a Lions player who normally plays loose forward but was played on the wing. He is 20 years old and weighs in at 98 KG, Fast elusive, big stepper and gets stuck in with physical play, looks for work. He handled his big old crust opponent well.
Of Course the should be played on the wing and its in this position am touting him. Rassie take note
ever there was an embodiment of the current South Africa, the Golden Lions’ SuperSport Rugby Challenge loose-forward Hacjivah Dayimani would be it.
Born of a Nigerian father and a Xhosa mother, the 19-year-old is already a cosmopolitan citizen of this country in that he first drew breath in Cape Town, moved to Cradock in the Eastern Cape pre-teens and concluded his adolescence in Johannesburg.
The No 8’s father was a devout Jew while his mother is a Sangoma, which led to the former Jeppe Boys High student’s unique first name.
Dayimani takes up the story: “My name is a combination of two names. Because my father was Jewish he wanted me to have a Hebrew name.
“He wanted to name me Akiva, and my mother wanted to name me Mpumelelo, which roughly translates to achiever in English. So they decided on Hacjivah because it included Akiva and also sounded like achiever.”
After initially living with his mother Lushabowang in Milnerton in Cape Town, Dayimani was sent to live with his grandmother in Cradock, where he started rugby because he had been inspired by Bryan Habana’s eight tries at the 2007 Rugby World Cup.
But then his late father, a former Nigerian boxer Dayimani says went by the name Frank Times, intervened as he said there would be more opportunities for his son in Johannesburg. And so began Dayimani’s brief flirtation with ambitions of being a boxer.
“Because my dad was a boxer he got me to do boxing,” Dayimani explained. “I wasn’t as good as my dad, but I trained for six or seven months and, when I was supposed to be graded I had to fight guys older than me because I was heavy – I was 13 and having to fight guys who were 18.”
RUGBY SCHOLARSHIP
One thing Dayimani could do – which would lead him to rugby – was run like the wind. Despite being a big boy (he is now 1.89m and 99.6kg), he almost always was the 100m and 200m champion in all the schools he has been to (his personal bests for the sprints when he left school were 10.70sec and 21sec).
This came in handy when he was in primary school at Kibler Park, where he left the fastest guy in the rugby team on the track and got recruited by the coach as a result. It was Dayimani’s pace which got him a place at Hoërskool President.
“In my trial game we were playing against Alberton and I came on with six minutes left and scored six tries. They kept kicking off to me and I kept going on to score.”
Then came his big school break, where he was part of a composite team from smaller schools like President at the Linden Easter Festival: “I scored in all three of our games and Jeppe offered me a rugby scholarship (incidentally called the Jake White scholarship).”
Because his father was against him playing rugby because it was against his religious beliefs (it meant playing on Saturdays), Dayimani had to negotiate a 100 percent scholarship instead of the 50 percent he was offered himself because his father would have refused to pay the rest.
“But I didn’t do well at Jeppe at first because I was always a star at my old school and there I was nobody,” he says of his first few months. “I almost left but in athletics I beat a former SA under-13 champion by a long way and suddenly everyone was paying attention to me.”
Being played at lock in his rugby sides was an issue, though: “I was third choice at under-15 level because I didn’t want to do the dirty work. But then one of the coaches moved me to eighthman in the under-16s and by the end of that year I had an understanding with the Lions that I would sign with them when I left school.”
Just a year out of school Dayimani is already a part of the Lions’ extended Super Rugby squad, and while he is not a regular starter in the Rugby Challenge he is joint-second on the try scorers list with six, thanks to a dangerous mix of speed, explosiveness and handling skills learnt from basketball.
He also comes with pedigree – Dayimani has played for the SA Schools team and the victorious SA Sevens team at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa.
A sign of how tough and determined he is lies in how he has handled the death of his father at 43 due to brain cancer last year: “It tough at first because it happened during my matric finals. But I’ve had to get over it because the world doesn’t wait for you.”
And in case you’re wondering, the translation of his surname means diamond.
PLAY THE GUY ON THE Wever there was an embodiment of the current South Africa, the Golden Lions’ SuperSport Rugby Challenge loose-forward Hacjivah Dayimani would be it.
Born of a Nigerian father and a Xhosa mother, the 19-year-old is already a cosmopolitan citizen of this country in that he first drew breath in Cape Town, moved to Cradock in the Eastern Cape pre-teens and concluded his adolescence in Johannesburg.
The No 8’s father was a devout Jew while his mother is a Sangoma, which led to the former Jeppe Boys High student’s unique first name.
Dayimani takes up the story: “My name is a combination of two names. Because my father was Jewish he wanted me to have a Hebrew name.
“He wanted to name me Akiva, and my mother wanted to name me Mpumelelo, which roughly translates to achiever in English. So they decided on Hacjivah because it included Akiva and also sounded like achiever.”
After initially living with his mother Lushabowang in Milnerton in Cape Town, Dayimani was sent to live with his grandmother in Cradock, where he started rugby because he had been inspired by Bryan Habana’s eight tries at the 2007 Rugby World Cup.
But then his late father, a former Nigerian boxer Dayimani says went by the name Frank Times, intervened as he said there would be more opportunities for his son in Johannesburg. And so began Dayimani’s brief flirtation with ambitions of being a boxer.
“Because my dad was a boxer he got me to do boxing,” Dayimani explained. “I wasn’t as good as my dad, but I trained for six or seven months and, when I was supposed to be graded I had to fight guys older than me because I was heavy – I was 13 and having to fight guys who were 18.”
RUGBY SCHOLARSHIP
One thing Dayimani could do – which would lead him to rugby – was run like the wind. Despite being a big boy (he is now 1.89m and 99.6kg), he almost always was the 100m and 200m champion in all the schools he has been to (his personal bests for the sprints when he left school were 10.70sec and 21sec).
This came in handy when he was in primary school at Kibler Park, where he left the fastest guy in the rugby team on the track and got recruited by the coach as a result. It was Dayimani’s pace which got him a place at Hoërskool President.
“In my trial game we were playing against Alberton and I came on with six minutes left and scored six tries. They kept kicking off to me and I kept going on to score.”
Then came his big school break, where he was part of a composite team from smaller schools like President at the Linden Easter Festival: “I scored in all three of our games and Jeppe offered me a rugby scholarship (incidentally called the Jake White scholarship).”
Because his father was against him playing rugby because it was against his religious beliefs (it meant playing on Saturdays), Dayimani had to negotiate a 100 percent scholarship instead of the 50 percent he was offered himself because his father would have refused to pay the rest.
“But I didn’t do well at Jeppe at first because I was always a star at my old school and there I was nobody,” he says of his first few months. “I almost left but in athletics I beat a former SA under-13 champion by a long way and suddenly everyone was paying attention to me.”
Being played at lock in his rugby sides was an issue, though: “I was third choice at under-15 level because I didn’t want to do the dirty work. But then one of the coaches moved me to eighthman in the under-16s and by the end of that year I had an understanding with the Lions that I would sign with them when I left school.”
Just a year out of school Dayimani is already a part of the Lions’ extended Super Rugby squad, and while he is not a regular starter in the Rugby Challenge he is joint-second on the try scorers list with six, thanks to a dangerous mix of speed, explosiveness and handling skills learnt from basketball.
He also comes with pedigree – Dayimani has played for the SA Schools team and the victorious SA Sevens team at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa.
A sign of how tough and determined he is lies in how he has handled the death of his father at 43 due to brain cancer last year: “It tough at first because it happened during my matric finals. But I’ve had to get over it because the world doesn’t wait for you.”
And in case you’re wondering, the translation of his surname means diamond.
