The Springboks’ Lions Tour jersey brings a bit of 1906 to 2021

The Springboks have revealed the limited edition jersey that they’ll wear when the British & Irish Lions tour South Africa next year, and it’s a jersey that is replete with nods to the nation’s rugby heritage.

Most notable of which is the ‘vintage colour way’ of the shirt – it’s subtle, but the iconic green and gold has been tweaked to better reflect the inconsistency of colour-dyeing that occurred with old-school Springbok jerseys that would give a slight blue hue to the green.

So while the shirt itself is clearly green, there’s a blue undertone that you don’t see with modern colour-matched artificially dyed fabrics – it’s a really subtle way to nod to the past, but a certainly unique one.

“You get green by mixing blue and yellow together and so a lot of the time when these guys ran out, their jerseys appeared to have a slight blue undertone,” said ASICS South Africa in a statement.

“It’s still green, of course, but slightly bluer than some of the modern green-and-gold incarnations. This jersey captures that essence.”

Otherwise of course it’s every bit a modern ASICS jersey, with a squared off modern stub collar being particularly striking, but there’s a further retro touch that’s much more noticeable.

The Springbok logo itself itself has been enlarged in the style of old-school jerseys, and it’s also been contained inside a black shield which contains a ‘2021’ legend.

This is a nice nod to the 1906 Springbok tour of Britain, Ireland and France – this was first time the Boks ever toured, and was also a tour when they first became known as the Springboks,

The badge on their jerseys was very similar to this, complete with shield, though it’s hard to tell from photos whether the badge itself here is black or green, as it appears both in different photos.

The Springboks will wear this jersey only for the three test matches against the British & Irish Lions, who revealed their 2021 jersey back in October.