Joe Marler deserves credit for one thing: he knows how to light a fire on a quiet rugby afternoon. Call Bakkies Botha the “dirtiest player going”. Suggest he was never world-class. Label him a “world-class thug”.
It’s brilliant clickbait, and it guarantees headlines in London — and outrage in Pretoria.
It just doesn’t survive contact with fact.
Marler, the former England prop, said he was scared of Botha. Most players were because Bakkies Botha was the enforcer of his generation — the anointed one sent to restore order and win back momentum if too many gainline collisions were lost.
But here’s what the narrative conveniently ignores: intimidation is not illegality, physical dominance is not thuggery and reputation is not record.
Botha played 85 Tests for the Springboks between 2002 and 2015. In that time he never received a red card in Test rugby. Not one. For a man supposedly defined by illegality, that is an inconvenient statistic.
Pushed boundaries
He was yellow-carded just four times in those 85 Tests. The first came on debut against France in Marseille in 2002. Four yellows across 13 years of Test rugby. That’s the record of a player who pushed boundaries but lived largely within them.
I wrote previously that Botha was brutal and a master of his art but never the dirtiest player in the game. Every statistic supports that view. The myth of constant criminality simply does not align with the disciplinary sheet.
And the “not world-class” line is as misguided as Marler’s belief that he and the England scrum would dominate the Boks in the 2019 World Cup final in Japan.
That is not the résumé of a passenger who was lucky to find himself in world-class teams.
Since the game turned professional in 1996, Botha and fellow Bulls, Toulon and Springbok player Danie Rossouw, have accumulated the most trophies across both hemispheres of any player in history.
With the Blue Bulls he won the Vodacom Cup in 2001 and three Currie Cups (2002, 2004, 2006 shared and 2009). With the Bulls he won three Super Rugby titles (2007, 2009, 2010), forming one of the most formidable second-row pairings with Victor Matfield in the professional era.
Botha conquered Europe
With Toulon, Botha conquered Europe. Three consecutive European Champions Cup titles in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and a Top 14 title in 2014. He became a cult hero in the world’s most unforgiving club competition, and fans voted him the best No 4 lock in the 30-year history of the European Champions Cup.
Botha is a 2007 World Cup winner, a 2009 British & Irish Lions series winner, a Tri-Nations champion in 2004 and 2009, and a multiple winner of the Freedom Cup and Mandela Challenge Plate.
That is not the résumé of a passenger who was lucky to find himself in world-class teams.
Bernard Laporte, the former France coach, Toulon boss and World Rugby vice-chairman called Botha the greatest player he coached in his career. Greater, in his words, than England’s iconic Jonny Wilkinson, who captained Toulon.
Laporte didn’t praise Botha for illegalities, thuggery or cheap shots. He singled out his presence, physicality, standards and influence.
Laporte admitted he idolised Botha for what the player did in matches, how he imposed himself, owned his position, and evoked fear in the opposition.
Botha partnered with Matfield at the Bulls and Springboks, and formed a power second row with All Black Ali Williams at Toulon.
World-class lock
Marler says Botha was a “world-class thug” in world-class teams.
Not quite, Joe. Our boy was a world-class lock who made world-class teams harder, nastier and more resilient.
You don’t win a World Cup, a Lions series, multiple Tri-Nations titles, three Super Rugby crowns and three European Cups because you only know how to land cheap shots and can’t play the game.
Botha did the illegal well, and he did the legal even better.
I can’t say the same thing for Marler as an England prop who was more court jester than king.
Marler tells a great yarn and is among rugby’s characters, but his gold medal is in getting laughs and clicks, whereas Botha’s came from winning every club and Test rugby title, including a World Cup final.
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