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Former Lions and Bulls lock beaten to death in France
By Online Editors
South African and French rugby is in a state of shock after the news that Barend Britz has been beaten to death.
Britz played Transvaal (Golden Lions) and Northern Transvaal (Blue Bulls) in the 1980's before moving to France where he played for Perpignan. In 1994 he won the Challenge Yves du Manoir.
The second row retired from the game in 1996 and settled in the French town and set up a bar called 'Bar and Britz'
The attack happened at 9pm last night at Britz' bar according to L'Independent, with glasses and carafe's being thrown at the bar window. Britz confronted the man, who then subsequently assaulted the 63-year-old. Britz was rushed to hospital but could not recover from his injuries.
A man in his 30's has since been arrested and is in police custody.
His former club Perpignan tweeted "The President of the USAP @F_Riviere, coaches, players, and all USAP personnel have learned with great sadness the passing of BAREND BRITZ, a former iconic player in our club.We offer our most sincere condolences to his family"
Tributes have come pouring in on his son's Facebook page, where a photo of the two has been posted.
Perpignan are due to play Connacht in the European Rugby Challenge Cup at The Sportsground on Saturday. The EPCR confirmed to RugbyPass that Perpignan have requested a minute's silence before the match in honour of Britz.
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Latest Comments
Total and utter rubbish. All that so-called ‘Super’ rugby did for SA rugby was to increase the airmiles accounts for our players and contribute a moer of a lot of cash to the Antipodeans. SA's schools and club rugby are the secret, and the only problem for our top sides is that so many of them are being poached by the European ones, and from an early age, too. That's why the Boks are so good, but the SA senior sides not so much at the moment, but are slowly coming to terms with having to play in NH weather. Mind you, they had to do that in skaapnaaier territory in the old days, too.
Go to commentsI can’t believe Rugby Australia thought the NZRU would accept 1-12 split. I’m sure if the split was more even then the NZRU would’ve made it work.
It’s even worse when the NZRU relatively recently gave Rugby Australia a bigger cut of the Super Rugby broadcast.
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