Top club rugby player’s breakthrough delayed by Covid-19
The effect of the Covid-19 crisis not only caused great damage in the ranks of professional rugby, but for amateur players with dreams of a breakthrough to the bigger stage, this crisis also brought great frustration.
By now, the upheavals that have taken place in South African rugby due to the Covid-19 crisis are well known.
Fans, players, coaches and administrators are all equally frustrated with the intervention of the crisis on rugby in general, with the 2020 season largely ruined.
But while players and coaches in the professional setup of rugby can still look forward to a bit of action at the end of 2020, there are men in the amateur ranks for whom the frustration has a very different meaning, because it deprived them of opportunities that could change their lives.
The brilliant young fullback of Centurion Rugby Club, Ashwill Botha, is a very good example of this.
As a 20-year-old junior, Botha broke through at senior club level last season and made several experts aware of his abilities. As a fullback and winger in Centurion’s first team, he was not only one of the top try scorers in the Volcano Interprovincial Super Club League and the local Carlton League, but his accurate place kicking also made him one of the top point scorers in these leagues.
With his rugby talent and raw speed on the athletics track (his best time over 100m is 10.8s), this native of the Northern Cape already drew attention as a schoolboy in Hoërskool Diamantveld in Kimberley. And he had reason to believe that 2020 would be the year he would realize his dreams of playing rugby on a bigger stage.
After his excellent performances last year, it was communicated to him from various sources that he was being watched and that, with sustained good play in 2020, he could expect offers from professional ranks locally or even overseas.
Then Covid-19 happened after only a single game in this new season and Botha’s whole life was overturned, just like the case with every other senior club and schools rugby player.
Things could have turned out differently earlier in Botha’s rugby career, but he learned some expensive lessons in this ruthless rugby landscape. The talented sportsman, who represented the Griquas at the u.16 Grant Khomo tournament and at Craven Week as a schoolboy, was approached by various agents and recruiters at Craven Week during his final year at school. However, he chose to accept the offer of an agent who approached him at the Wildeklawer tournament with the possibility that, after only one year of club rugby in Pretoria, he would have the opportunity to play professional rugby in France.
Unfortunately, this undertaking did not materialize. He was spotted by the Blue Bulls and was briefly part of the union’s u.21 training group, without a chance to play. He was then picked up by the Pumas in Nelspruit, where he played provincial u.21 rugby in 2018.
Last year, coach Riaan Brand lured him back to Centurion rugby club, where he then gave one great performance after another among the senior men.
Despite all the frustration of the past six months, Botha is still positive that his chance of a breakthrough will come. He worked hard all the time on his fitness while earning his bread as a salesman during the day after the lockdown regulations were relaxed.
A few weeks ago, the Blue Bulls again invited him to join the union’s training group for the SuperSport Trophy league.
Whether this will be his big breakthrough and whether he will have to seek his salvation overseas soon, he does not know. What Ashwill Botha does know however, is that he has not stopped dreaming big and he believes that he can still make it to the very top on the rugby field.
Upon hearing Ashwill Botha’s story, one soon realizes that Covid-19 has not only tested some sportsmen’s tolerance for frustration, but if he might one day look back on a successful career, he will be able to say that 2020 was also a big test for his character.
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