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Jake White's Bulls to lose Arno Botha to France - report
By Kim Ekin
The Vodacom Bulls are reportedly set to lose Arno Both to Lyon, just a year after he returned to Pretoria.
Botha, an explosive ball carrier who plays flanker and number eight, played his entire professional career with the Blue Bulls before moving to London Irish in 2018.
From there he moved to Irish province Munster for two seasons, before returning to Jake White's Bulls in the second half of 2020.
A former South Africa U20s captain, he featured for the Springboks on two occasions in 2013.
Now - according to Rapport in South Africa - Botha, who has captained the Bulls, is set to return to Europe to take up a lucrative offer with Lyon.
It's a bit of a blow for White, who most recent tenure at the Bulls has been typified by his brilliance in the recruitment department.
Botha rose to prominence for South Africa U20s during the 2011 IRB Junior World Championship, scoring six tries on his way to being named South Africa Under-20 Player of the Year.
His rise in stock earned him a call-up to the Springbok senior set-up two years later, when he made his debut against Italy in Durban. Highly thought of by the Blue Bulls, Botha signed a contract extension with the Pretoria-based club the same year.
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Larry Brown was 63 when he won the NBA, and Phil Jackson was 64.
I guess my general feeling in rugby is that most coaches seem to decline quite a bit when they hit 60, and to be coaching at the top level when you’re 65 or older is extremely rare. Maybe in american sports people have another 5 years, but that doesn’t seem like a massive difference.
Either way, I’m going to stick with my verdict that appointing Les Kiss at age 60 would be ok as a short term deal - but appointing him at 63 and expecting him to last 4 years would be foolish.
Go to commentsWe come off a loss and a big one to Moana Pasifika and 2 years in a row losing to the Drua. The motivation to reverse that is huge. This competition has been unpredictable. I believe the return of inform players like Antonio Shalfoon , Christian Lio-Willie will make a huge difference.Tom Christie, who played so well in his 2 starts and Corrie Kellow will be raring to go. We missed David Havili, the form second five and captain last week, he thankfully will be back soon. But Codie Taylor is a great choice to captain in the mean time in David’s absence.
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