Six of the greatest players ever to wear the Green and Gold are back in competition, and this time the prize is R500 000 for charity.
One to One Hundred: An Evening with the Rugby Centurions brings together Percy Montgomery, John Smit, Victor Matfield, Bryan Habana, Jean de Villiers, and Willie le Roux.
Between them they hold nearly 700 test caps and almost 40 years of shared changing rooms. Each has passed the rare milestone of 100 caps for South Africa.
Hosted by former Scotland international and British & Irish Lion Jim Hamilton, of the globally popular rugby podcast The Big Jim Show, the show puts the six against each other in a series of games that test one thing: how well they know themselves, and each other. Every correct answer banks money for charity. The Centurion who raises the most is crowned the One to One Hundred champion.
The show premieres on SuperSport on Friday 13 November at 7pm, as the build-up to South Africa vs France.
The show was filmed in August at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. All Black centurions Dan Carter and Richie McCaw joined the evening too. It mixes quick-fire games with candid conversation about the long road from the first cap to 100 caps.
The games get personal fast. Hamilton starts off by asking them to guess which childhood photograph is one of the centurions, who books full body massages for pleasure, and who is allergic to peanut butter.
Then questions like “who is most likely to cheat at golf?”, “who would be the retirement home bingo champion?”, and “who has the largest monthly physio bill?” hit the contestants.
Other rounds test their memories of first tests and famous try-scoring partnerships.
The night builds to the biggest round, worth R150 000. A guest tells the story of how one centurion changed their life, and the panel must work out who it is.
MEMORIES RELIVED
Between games, the players revisit the places that shaped them, from John Smit's return to Pretoria Boys High to Victor Matfield back at Loftus. They talk openly about mentors, nerves before a debut, nine surgeries, reinvention, leadership and legacy.
The money is real, and it has already gone where it matters. On the night, Peregrine Capital and the centurions handed over R250 000 to the Chris Burger Petro Jackson Players’ Fund, accepted by Jean de Villiers as the Fund’s Chairman, and R250 000 to Get into Rugby South Africa, accepted by Angelique Naude, for the grassroots programme that safely introduces children to the sport.
“Only a handful of players in the history of the game have reached a hundred test caps,” said host Jim Hamilton.
“I managed sixty-three, and lost forty-five of them, so trust me when I say these six are something else. What stays with you after this show isn’t the tries or the trophies. It’s the legacy. Somewhere a kid at a club nobody’s heard of is going to watch this and start chasing their own hundred.”
John Smit’s summed it up, “The number 100 represents a clear threshold and very few do achieve it. It implies resilience, focus, professionalism, consistency, passion, discipline, and determination. These qualities are the bedrock that forms the foundation for a rugby player’s journey to reach 100 international test caps.”
Six legends. One title. R500 000 for charity. Don’t miss the battle of the Centurions on SuperSport on 13 November at 7pm, before the Springboks take on France.