Arno Botha

Ulster announced Arno Botha on a two-year contract in January 2017 and then cancelled it. He failed the medical on a knee that had already cost him a full season.

Note on his current club: Botha is still listed in Lyon‘s squad data. He joined USON Nevers in 2026, on two seasons.

Back-row forward, 1.90m and 108kg, born in Nylstroom in Limpopo on 26 October 1991.

He captained his school side, played at Craven Week in 2009, and joined the Blue Bulls academy in 2010. He won the provincial Under-21 title and played Varsity Cup rugby for UP Tuks in 2011, the year he finished the Junior World Championship as its leading try-scorer with seven. His first Springboks cap followed in 2013, against Italy in Durban. He has one more.

The Bulls used him from 2012, ten times off the bench in his first Super Rugby season. Then the injuries started: the whole of 2014 lost to his knee, a single match in 2017.

After the Ulster contract collapsed he rebuilt in England, seven matches at London Irish, and then spent two seasons at Munster, starting regularly enough to be extended once before he chose to go home.

The honours came late and in a rush under Jake White. Super Rugby Unlocked in 2020. The Currie Cup in 2020-21, with two tries in the final, and again the season after. A United Rugby Championship final in 2022, lost.

Lyon signed him that year on two seasons and extended him in April 2024. He reached the 2025 Challenge Cup final with them and lost it.

Two caps from a career that began with a golden boot at Under-20 level usually means injuries, and here it plainly does.