Handré Pollard, Jurenzo Julius and Danie van Heerden go Beyond the Name to reveal what really makes them Jabula

JabulaBets introduces its Beyond the Name campaign with Handré Pollard, Jurenzo Julius and Danie “Pitbull” van Heerden, exploring the family ties, private doubts and everyday happiness behind their public lives.

A son waiting in the doorway. A phone call home to share good news. A family watching from the crowd. These are some of the moments introducing South Africans to the Jabula Squad, a growing community platform from JabulaBets that brings together athletes, personalities and an expanding network of members.

Launching through Beyond the Name, the brand’s first major national campaign, the Squad opens with three familiar sporting figures: Handré Pollard, Jurenzo Julius and Danie “Pitbull” van Heerden. Their stories invite audiences beyond the results and reputations to meet the people their families and friends know.

Rolling out across JabulaBets’ digital channels from 6 November, the campaign combines films, personal interviews and candid shared conversations. At its centre is a question drawn from the brand’s name: what makes you feel Jabula?

Jabula is the isiZulu word for “to be happy” or “to rejoice”. For the Squad’s first three members, the answers lead to family, belonging and the people who have helped them keep going.

The stories behind the Squad

Each film follows one member. When the Lights Go Down sits with Pollard, the Stoic Leader. Building the Name follows Julius, the Rising Spark, from Namibia towards his professional rugby ambitions. More Than the Pitbull introduces van Heerden, the Challenger, away from the assumptions attached to his fighting persona.

For Pollard, happiness can be as simple as arriving home.

“The thing that makes me the happiest in life currently is coming home, stopping and watching my son stand in the doorway waiting for me,” he says. “I think it’s priceless.”

Fatherhood has also changed the way he measures achievement. “When you’re young, you look at medals, trophies, caps and money as success. But being a good husband and father, and being present at home, is something I don’t think you can put a price on.”

Julius’s story returns to the family he left behind when he moved from Namibia to Paul Roos Gymnasium on a scholarship. He recalls loneliness and the reassurance of a conversation with his father: “He reminded me that, ‘God is always with you. You are never alone.’”

When an invitation to a national alignment camp arrived, his parents were the first people he wanted to tell.

“To see how happy they were, and to see all the sacrifices they made paying off, was almost a full-circle moment,” he says.

Van Heerden, meanwhile, introduces a side of himself that spectators may rarely encounter: a father who enjoys a braai, games with his two sons and jokes about being a “trophy husband”.

“The fans and the people at the moment, they see the results,” he says. “They don’t see the travel, they don’t see the struggles, they don’t see those moments where I wanted to quit. They only see the results.”

A community people can recognise themselves in

For JabulaBets co-founder and director Caly McCall, those experiences explain the thinking behind the Squad. The platform is intended to create connections through stories that feel familiar, even when the people telling them compete on an international stage.

“We don’t simply want famous faces representing Jabula. We want genuine relationships with people who share our values, believe in what we’re building and have the freedom to bring their authentic selves into our brand,” says McCall.

The athletes were chosen for the character and experiences behind their achievements, including the hard work, setbacks and relationships that have shaped them.

Across the campaign, those stories give meaning to “Jabula – It’s a Feeling”. This is what the brand calls the Jabula Effect: recognising something of your own life in the person behind a familiar name.

“Ultimately, our ambition is to build a Squad that South Africans don’t just follow, but feel part of,” says McCall.

Watch the campaign and meet the Squad at jabulabets.co.za/squad.

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