South African Barbarians
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| Nickname(s) | Baa-Baas |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1960 |
| Coach(es) |
 Nick Mallett (May 2013)
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| First match | |
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Natal – SA Barbarians (1960) |
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South African Barbarians is an invitational rugby union club formed in 1960 by Frank Mellish, the former 1951-2 Springbok selector and manager together with former Natal chairman, Harry Stacey, styled along the lines of Barbarian F.C.
The club colours are a light and dark blue quartered jersey with white shorts, players may wear socks of their choice (usually their club socks). The blazer badge is similar to the badge used by the Barbarians F.C. in 1929 although playing jerseys simply have a leaping lamb on the left chest.
Their first incarnation was as a combined All Black and Springbok outfit, under the captaincy of Avril Malan, in a fixture versus Natal during the All Blacks tour to South Africa in 1960. Another "red letter" day in the club's history was when it defeated the touring British Barbarians at Port Elizabeth in 1969. The club's existence was fairly precarious thereafter but the Quaggas, essentially a Transvaal Barbarians side, were active at the time and the clubs effectively merged in 1976, recording a narrow defeat (31-32) against the touring All Blacks side of that year. The club is directly affiliated to the South African Rugby Union.
Possibly the most significant event for the club was the first multiracial South African rugby team to tour outside South Africa when it went to the United Kingdom in October 1979. The tour squad had eight white players (SARB), eight coloured players (SARFF) and eight black players (SARA/SARU) and was managed by Chick Henderson, once of Oxford University, Richmond, Coventry and Transvaal, who had gained nine caps for Scotland. Attempts were made from the start to integrate the squad's three ethnic groups with six of the eight white Barbarians rooming with black or coloured teammates on the first overnight stay. The squad was coached in English despite only two of the twenty four using English as their first language whilst tour singing was often in Xhosa.
Seven fixtures were played,results were as follows:
Weds 3 October 1979 Devon (Exeter) W27-18
Sat 6 October 1979 Cornwall (Camborne) W23-7
Weds 10 October 1979 Scottish Border Club (Galashiels) D20-20
Sun 14 October 1979 Co-Optimists (Hawick) L4-24
Weds 17 October 1979 Coventry W41-24
Weds 24 October 1979 Llanelli W15-6
Sat 27 October 1979 Newport L15-21
The Scottish leg of the tour saw two very demanding fixtures against "representative XVs", the first a highly creditable draw against a Borders Select which contained ten full Scottish capped players. The Sunday fixture against a strong Co-Optimist outfit containing five internationals was notable for the absence of a sizable number of the white players from the starting line up on grounds of religious observance,principally amongst the forward pack (only two white players started with a further two joining as replacements whilst previous starting line ups had included at least half a dozen of the white playing contingent).
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