Times have been pretty rough for the Springboks since they signed up with ASICS back in 2014, but with the World Cup a year away there have been real signs that the Boks are bouncing back, and they’ve been doing so in their brand new shirt.
Following on from last year’s back to basics old-school design, the 2018 variant is a little bit more forward-thinking, though it still keeps things very clean and classic.
So, we have the classic dark green jersey with a gold collar – this time it’s more of a classic stub collar than the fold-over design of 2017 – but there’s a bit more going on here than the sublimated Springboks we saw last season.
The bottom third of the jersey front has a series of tonal geometric patterns that come to a near point just below the sponsor logo, and apparently this is designed to represent the triangle- and diamond-heavy patterns often seen in Zulu art.
This pattern is much more visible on the new away shirt, where the tonal motif has been swapped for a grey-on-white colour palette, the shirt itself, is of course a great deal more traditional than last year’s red design…
The away shirt doesn’t give us a better view of one of our favourite design features that’s found on the back of both jerseys – the distinctive four sets of lines, which has been borrowed from the Nguni shields used by Zulu warriors.
We really like the balance of classic and more unconventional design features incorporated in both of these jerseys, and the use of Zulu iconography in the designs is a welcome and creative new flourish.
It all comes together to create two fantastic and crowd-pleasing new jerseys, that also seem to be coinciding with a rejuvenation of the Springboks on the field – good timing indeed.
Rugby Shirt Watch 
Good read, nice looking jerseys. I think the way the sponsors have worked with the design works well too.