Wesley White, son of Vodacom Bulls director of rugby and head coach Jake White, is targeting playing for the Blitzboks after joining the team for a trial.
According to Netwerk24, the 25-year-old has joined the national sevens academy in Stellenbosch on a trial period after stints in France, the USA and England.
White attended Bishops College in Cape Town and represented the school’s 1st XV as a flank in 2013, while he also played for the Western Province U18 team against Montpellier’s junior team as a schoolboy.
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After school, he moved to Durban in 2014 and played for the Sharks U19 team, where he was moved to hooker. The following year, White had his first stint overseas, when he joined France Pro D2 side Montauban, before he moved to the USA to study at Lindenwood University in Missouri.
White would spend three years in the States between 2016 and 2019, where he was a two-time Collegiate Rugby Championship winner and trained with the USA Eagles sevens team.
When his dream of representing the USA at a national level did not materialise, White moved to England and hoped to represent the country internationally as he qualified through his grandmother’s British citizenship.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic scuppered his plans and he since returned to South Africa and hopes to play for the Blitzboks.
‘My dream is to get a contract and run out for the Blitzboks,’ White told Netwerk24. ‘ There’s the Olympic Games on the horizon [in July], but I think the Blitzbok coaches already have an idea of what that team will look like.
‘There is also a Sevens World Cup [in Cape Town in 2022] that lies ahead and that may be a more realistic goal,’ he added.
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