Following South Africa’s 15-6 victory over England in the Rugby World Cup Final in Paris on Saturday.

There is hope that the success of the Springboks will help speed up the transformation of a sport that is still viewed by many disadvantaged people of the old apartheid South Africa as a white sport and even more so the game of the Afrikaner.

Traditionally, most communities of colour played soccer, while for white communities rugby was the winter sport of choice.

When South Africa first won the world cup in 1995 and Nelson Mandela, the country's former president and human rights activist, sent out a message of support by wearing the green Springbok jersey. Mandela recently reinforced this message, saying: "We are powerfully reminded of that historic day in 1995. We not only won the Rugby World Cup, but more importantly we were one nation united behind our victorious team

Rugby in the new South Africa has changed through the combination of an active development programme and the government’s controversial quota system. Through the quota system, players of colour have been given the opportunity to compete at the higher levels of the game regardless of merit

Some politicians believe the only way to change the stereotype of rugby being associated as a mainly white sport, is to reserve places for non-white players. But the rising star of the South African team, Bryan Habana disagrees with the quota system.

"Every person from an ethnic group wants to have their equal chance to represent their country so that could be a little unfair on, not only a black person, but on a person who has talent and is shunned away because there is a person of ethnic colour that is better than him."

Habana attended a prestigious government school in the capital city of Johannesburg where everything was done to nurture his sporting talent. He is now a hero and a powerful role model for young black kids in the South African townships. However, it will not be easy for these young rugby enthusiasts to follow in their hero's footsteps.

Rugby is being played more and more in South Africa's townships among high school players. But when they leave high school, few are able to nurture their talent due to a continued lack of facilities and structure.

Many South Africans feel the current system is flawed and the government should focus more on setting up development programmes in poorer communities to encourage the sport, so that talented players are able to reach the upper echelons of the sport on merit.

Following the final, South African captain John Smit said that he hoped his country’s win would provoke a review of the quota system. For him, the two most important people had been Habana and and the other black winger JP Pietersen.

"We are a colourful country," said Smit, “We have 11 different languages, but the amount of forward momentum for the country that we have got from this has been incredible. There is no colour in our team. Everyone no matter what their colour gives everything. It says a lot about how far we have gone forward as a nation and we will celebrate with 45 million people on our triumphant return."