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Michigan Football holds clinic with South Africa National Rugby Team

Michigan exchanges ideas in Cape Town with the South African rugby team

SMU v Michigan Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

The Michigan football team continues to have a good time in the sunny country of South Africa.

On Sunday the team participated in a rugby and football clinic.

Per UM:

The Wolverines united under the banner of sports with youth and college players from the Cape Town area as well as professional players from the Springbok, the country’s national rugby team. Michigan players learned the skills necessary to play rugby while teaching the game of football to the youth in attendance.

“The older rugby players ran a scrimmage to show the Wolverines how a full-field game is played and then put the student-athletes through two instructional sessions featuring rugby drills. The clinic ended with the UTC choir singing the national anthems of the United States and South Africa. Michigan captain Ben Bredeson participated in a jersey swap with the organizing rugby clubs and offered a few works of thanks for the opportunity to learn the game of rugby.”

It’s very cool the Wolverines had a chance to link up with The Springboks, who are among the finest rugby players in the world. The Springboks have won the Rugby World Cup in 1995 and 2007 and were featured in the film Invictus with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.

According to the Springboks, “the Wolverines coaching staff met with the coaching and conditioning coaches of the national rugby squads, to exchange experiences and ideas in their respective fields of expertise”.

What Michigan players do you think would hold their own in rugby?