Mouritz Botha made an impressive England starting debut against Scotland last weekend
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The Independent's Chris Hewett talks to England lock Mouritz Botha ahead of his third cap for his adopted nation.
"The average rugby romantic does not, as a general rule, turn to South African lock forwards when he goes in search of his spirit-soaring fix.
"There was nothing alluring about Louis Moolman or Moaner van Heerden, an engine-room pairing from hell who reduced many a pack to its component parts during their time in the Springbok side, and if Johannes de Bruyn had a hearts-and-flowers side to him, it was not obvious to the late Gordon Brown of blessed Lions memory. Brown built an entire after-dinner routine around events in Pretoria in 1974, when he sent De Bruyn's glass eye flying from its socket and then watched, in a state of advanced petrification, as his opponent reinserted it, tufts of grass still attached, before heading back to the line-out for a continuation of the argument.
"Even in the professional age, with its all-seeing cameras and citing officials, Bakkies Botha has managed to win himself a permanent place in the Springbok bestiary, and judging by the way the World Cup-winning hard man's namesake performed on his first international start last weekend, there is no obvious reason to think that South African second-rowers have suddenly discovered pacifism. Mouritz Botha may have been playing for England, but he performed like every ultra-ruthless Bokke lock who ever took the field in a green shirt."
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