14-year wait over as burly lock’s dream is realised
IN A normal turn of events, Mouritz Botha should have been slugging it out at a chilly Kingsholm along with former Sharks lock Alistair Hargreaves as Saracens took on Gloucester in the Aviva Premiership on Friday evening.
Saracens, who are effectively an extension of a South African Super Rugby outfit masquerading as a premiership side through its South African links, faced their own lock mini-crisis after Steve Borthwick’s retirement.
Botha, who played 10 tests for England, was expected to fill that void but somehow the South African voice inside him became too loud.
After all, the Sharks, who Botha joined at the end of last year, had their own lock issues with Stephan Lewies being the one-man target for the best part of the season.
Botha, who looks more like a surfer than a rugby player with his hefty build betrayed by shaggy hair and an easy-going demeanour, preferred sweating buckets in the torturous Durban heat and humidity to trudging through the mud and sludge of Gloucester.
“I did say to some of the guys that I would much rather prefer being here in Durban and sweat everywhere rather than not being able to feel my fingers in the cold. The game in the Northern Hemisphere is forward-orientated but you do feel the cold so being here is not a bad change at all,” Botha said with a smile after a tough training session.
At 32, most locks of Botha’s calibre in England would be trying to push Stuart Lancaster’s hand for the Six Nations and the World Cup, but with younger guns like Joe Launchbury (23), George Kruis (24), Courtney Lawes (25) and Dave Attwood (27) all getting ahead of him in the queue, the World Cup window seemed permanently shut.
His last match, oddly, came against South Africa at Twickenham on November 24, 2012 when Willem Alberts and Pat Lambie combined to keep Heyneke Meyer’s side afloat with a 16-15 win.
It seems fitting that he joins the Sharks after players from the same union combined to put an early end to what was a promising international career.
It was a game that saw the emergence of Wasps’ Launchbury as a world-class enforcer and England’s willingness to move away from their chrysalis of caution after a disastrous 2011 Rugby World Cup.
Botha, who hails from Vryheid in Northern KwaZulu-Natal, knew his World Cup opportunity had already passed him by. It was the thrill of the new rugby challenge that drew him back to SA.
It is not commonplace, especially with the pound/rand exchange rate that players move from England to South Africa, but the Sharks have somehow found a way to prise two of them, with prop Matt Stevens being the other catch.
Brendan Venter’s role in getting the lock to the Sharks due to his links with Saracens cannot be understated.
“I was probably at a stage of my career where I was probably going to move on at the end of the season and an opportunity arose here. I wasn’t in the current squad anymore and when I got the call to come down here, I did not hesitate,” Botha said.
“The opportunity to work with Brendan Venter again was too good to refuse. He played a big role in me coming down here and I don’t forget that he gave my first professional rugby opportunity. He’s been a brilliant coach and mentor for me, not just in rugby, but in other spheres of life.”
While the World Cup dream, which he narrowly missed out on in 2011, will not be seen through, the lifelong one of playing domestic rugby in South Africa will be easily achieved if he stays injury free.
Botha turns 33 on January 29, but his keenness to rewind the clock has not been dimmed by age. Any rugby player who is brave enough to play with shaggy hair holds the match to the flame of eternal youth that cannot be easily dimmed. After all, Durban holds special memories for Botha.
“As a schoolboy, I always dreamt of playing Currie Cup and Super Rugby and even though I moved to the United Kingdom in 2004, I always harboured the dream of actually playing domestic rugby in the country of my birth. I have waited 14 years to be able to achieve this dream,” Botha said.
“My grandparents spent a lot of their time here in Durban and so did my parents, who studied here so I’m not particularly new to this city. I do have some fond memories of this place and I did miss the unique smells that are only particular to this area of the country. Being here does bring back a lot of memories.”
I did miss the unique smells particular to this area