In a country where the green and gold is woven into the fabric of sporting life, wearing black can sometimes feel like an act of defiance.
For one Cape Town rugby supporter, though, it is not.
It is identity. It is memory. It is family. It is Jonah Lomu.
And, above all, it is love for a team that has been part of his life since he was nine years old.
This week, when the All Blacks run onto the field at Cape Town Stadium to face the Springboks in the second Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry, he will be watching from South African soil - supporting New Zealand in rugby’s ultimate showdown.
For years, that has meant navigating the inevitable questions, the banter and, occasionally, something far more uncomfortable.
But it has never changed his allegiance.
“I definitely feel like I’m going against the grain,” said Craig Bestenbier from Goodwood in Cape Town.
Perhaps that is the first thing to understand about South Africans who support the All Blacks: for most, supporting the Kiwis is not about rejecting South Africa.
It is about finding something in the All Blacks that speaks to them.
For some, it is the style of rugby. For others, it is a player who captured their imagination as a child. For others still, it is family — a parent, grandparent or sibling who passed down a love for the black jersey.
And yes, for others it stems from apartheid and the sidelining of non-whites when it came to national teams.
And sometimes, it is simply the team they fell in love with before they were old enough to understand that they were supposed to choose differently.
For Bestenbier, a superfan and one of the two administrators of the Cape Town All Black supporters club, it was Lomu.
His story began in 1995. He was nine years old, growing up in a family divided by rugby allegiance.
His father was a passionate Springbok supporter. His mother came from an All Blacks-supporting family, her father and brothers followed New Zealand.
But there was no great family campaign to win him over.
Then he saw Jonah Lomu.
“I was mesmerised with the dude,” Bestenbier told The National.
That was enough. The giant New Zealand winger became the first sporting hero to make rugby feel larger than the television screen. From that moment, the All Blacks were his team.
It is a familiar route into fandom: not through politics, nationality or rejection, but through emotion.
A child sees a player doing something extraordinary and decides, almost instinctively, that this is the team for him.
Three decades later, that childhood decision still holds.
And Bestenbier is far from alone.
South Africa’s rugby culture is complicated enough to allow for a multitude of loyalties. The Springboks may occupy a unique place in the country’s sporting consciousness, but rugby supporters are not all motivated by the same things.
Some admire New Zealand’s running rugby. Some grew up watching great All Blacks sides. Some were drawn to legendary players such as Lomu. And for some South Africans, supporting the All Blacks has also been shaped by the history of this country.
Bestenbier’s father helped him understand that history, including the exclusion of players of colour from representing the Springboks during apartheid.
That history, however, does not dictate his support for New Zealand, but it forms part of the complicated landscape in which South African rugby fandom developed.
Yet there is an important distinction in Bestenbier’s story.
Supporting the All Blacks does not mean he does not support South Africa. He says you can be proudly South African and passionately support the All Blacks at the same time
“A lot of people disagree and point towards a lack of patriotism, but at the end of the day I don’t support the country New Zealand, I support the All Blacks team," he added.
"It’s the team I like most, I’ve always liked the way they play rugby, their culture and all that. So it’s not a question of ‘I don’t like South Africa’. It’s not the style [I like] and the way the teams have been managed over the years is not something I could latch onto - regardless of country, the team.
“Having said that, I am a big supporter of South African cricket or I support South Africa when it comes to the Olympics… it’s literally just the rugby thing.”
That explanation perhaps explains more about the phenomenon than any argument about patriotism ever could.
For him, nationality and sporting allegiance are not necessarily the same thing.
He is South African. His rugby team happens to be the All Blacks.
And that distinction is sometimes difficult for other supporters to accept.
Sometimes, even finding somewhere to watch the match can be difficult. Public viewing spaces can become uncomfortable when he is kitted in his All Blacks jersey, and some supporters would rather stay away than invite the hostility that can come with revealing their colours.
He has heard derogatory terms from other fans and also considers the name given to Cape All Blacks fans on social media “Cape Crusaders” derogatory.
There is banter, he accepts. That is part of sport.
But there is a boundary.
“Banter is normal,” he said. “But insulting race isn’t. What has my race got to do with it? I could have been white, I could have been black, it’s just uncalled for.
“People are always throwing around this term Cape Crusaders, for me it’s a derogatory term because it specifically refers to coloured people living in Cape Town.
“It started during the Newlands days when we used to watch Super Rugby…”
That is why the social media communities he helps to run have a simple philosophy: support the All Blacks, but do it without hatred.
It’s a philosophy he reinforces in the All Blacks supporter groups he helps administer, where he filters out messages that promote hatred.
“If someone starts with hate speech or tries to push the racism agenda with the Springboks, we try to nip it in the bud, we don’t want people to spread a negative message about South Africa or any other team for that matter. We try to keep it positive,” he explained.”
For Bestenbier, the ideal supporter is one who can celebrate without belittling the opposition.
“Always remain humble in victory, gracious in defeat,” he explained.
Bestenbier, like most All Blacks fans, does not support the team out of spite for South Africans. They support the All Blacks because they love the team, what they represent and the rugby they play.
None of those things make him less South African.
And perhaps that is the greater story behind South Africans who support the All Blacks. They are not necessarily choosing New Zealand over their country.
They are choosing a team.
They are choosing the players and moments that made them fall in love with rugby in the first place.
For Bestenbier, one of those moments came in 2011.
New Zealand had waited 24 years to win another World Cup after their triumph in 1987.
When the All Blacks finally lifted the trophy again, beating France in a tense final, Bestenbier watched from home with his parents.
He broke down and cried.
That reaction says everything that statistics and arguments about patriotism cannot.
You do not cry like that for a team you casually follow.
You cry because somewhere along the way, the team has become part of you.
Now the All Blacks are coming back to Cape Town.
The rivalry will be fierce. The Springboks will have an enormous home support behind them. The questions about loyalty will come again.
But Bestenbier will put on his black jersey.
Not because he hates the Springboks.
Not because he is ashamed of being South African.
But because, three decades ago, a nine-year-old boy saw Jonah Lomu and fell in love with a rugby team.
That love never left.
And perhaps that is why, in the land of green and gold, there will always be some South Africans who choose black.
They are not turning their backs on South Africa.
They are simply following their hearts.