Bernado Carl Botha (born 4 July 1988) is a South African professional

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

player who last played for the in the

Currie Cup The Currie Cup () is South Africa's premier domestic rugby union competition featuring teams representing either entire provinces or substantial regions within provinces. Although it is the premier domestic competition, four South African franc ...

. He has been playing first class rugby since 2009 and was a regular member of the South Africa Sevens team between 2010 and 2013. His regular position is winger or fullback.

Career

Youth and Varsity rugby

Botha represented South Western Districts at the 2004 Under-16 Grant Khomo Week. He then moved to

Gauteng Gauteng ( , ; Sotho-Tswana languages, Sotho-Tswana for 'place of gold'; or ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts f ...

and was included in the squad for the 2006 Under-18

Craven Week The Craven Week is an annual rugby union tournament organised for schoolboys in the Republic of South Africa. The tournament started in July 1964, and is named after the legendary Springbok rugby union player and coach Dr Danie Craven. The ...

tournament. The following year, he received a call-up to the South African Under-19 squad for the 2007 Under 19 Rugby World Championship in Ireland. He continued to represent the at youth level, playing for their Under-19s in national championships in 2007 and for the Under-21s in 2008 and 2009. He also played for in the

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

and

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

Varsity Cup Varsity Cup is the collective name for four South African rugby union competitions involving the top rugby playing universities in the country. It was launched in 2008, with eight teams participating in the Varsity Cup competition and each unive ...

competitions, scoring four tries in eight appearances.

Senior career

Botha was included in the squad for the

2008 Vodacom Cup The 2008 Vodacom Cup was played between 22 February and 16 May 2008 and was the 11th edition of this annual domestic cup competition. This edition of the Vodacom Cup was played between the fourteen provincial rugby union teams in South Africa f ...

competition, but failed to make an appearance, despite being named as a substitute for their match against the . Once again named in their Vodacom Cup squad in

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

, Botha duly made his first class debut by starting in their match against the in

Randfontein Randfontein is a gold mining town in the West Rand, Gauteng, South Africa, west of Johannesburg. With the Witwatersrand gold rush in full swing, mining financier Sir Joseph Robinson, 1st Baronet, JB Robinson bought the farm Randfontein and, in ...

. He made seven starts in total and weighed in with four tries during that tournament. Following two more appearances in the 2010 Vodacom Cup, Botha was then included in the squad for the

2010 Super 14 season The 2010 Super 14 season kicked off in February 2010 with pre-season matches held from mid-January. It finished on 29 May. The 2010 season was the fifth and last season of the expanded Super Rugby, Super 14 format. The schedule, which covers 3� ...

. He made two substitute appearances, against the in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

and against the in

Welkom Welkom () is a city in the Free State (province), Free State province of South Africa, located about northeast of Bloemfontein, the provincial capital. Welkom is also known as Circle City, City Within A Garden, Mvela and Matjhabeng. The city' ...

Sevens rugby

In 2010, Botha joined the South African Sevens squad and appeared in the

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

and South African legs of the

2010–11 IRB Sevens World Series The 2010–11 IRB Sevens World Series was the 12th annual IRB Sevens World Series of rugby union sevens tournaments for full national sides run by the International Rugby Board since 1999–2000. Sevens is traditionally played in a two-day tourna ...

. In October 2011, he signed a two-year deal with the

South African Rugby Union The South African Rugby Union (SARU) is the governing body for rugby union in South Africa and is affiliated to World Rugby. It was established in 1992 as the South African Rugby Football Union, from the merger of the South African Rugby Board ...

to represent the sevens side and became a regular for them in the 2011–12 and 2012–13 seasons of the

IRB Sevens World Series The SVNS, known as the HSBC SVNS for sponsorship reasons, is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World ...

Griffons

At the conclusion of the

2012–13 IRB Sevens World Series The 2012–13 IRB Sevens World Series, known for sponsorship reasons as the HSBC Sevens World Series, was the 14th annual series of rugby sevens tournaments for full national sides. The IRB Sevens World Series has been run by the International Rug ...

, Botha made a return to fifteens rugby and made five appearances for

-based side during the

2013 Currie Cup First Division The 2013 Currie Cup First Division was contested from 29 June to 11 October 2013. The tournament (also known as the Absa Currie Cup First Division for sponsorship reasons) is the second tier of South Africa's premier domestic rugby union compe ...

Pumas

He then joined the prior to the 2014 Vodacom Cup competition. He was a member of the Pumas side that won the

Vodacom Cup The Vodacom Cup was an annual rugby union competition in South Africa. Annual Vodacom Cup competitions were played between its inaugural season in 1998 and 2015 and was contested between February and May each year. The Vodacom Cup was the succes ...

for the first time in

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

, beating 24–7 in the final. Botha made eight appearances during the season.

Batumi

He joined

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

n Didi 10 side

Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ), historically Batum or Batoum, is the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), second-largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast ...

for the 2017–18 season.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Botha, Bernado South African rugby union players Living people 1988 births Sportspeople from Oudtshoorn Golden Lions players Griffons (rugby union) players Lions (United Rugby Championship) players Pumas (Currie Cup) players South Africa international rugby sevens players Rugby sevens players at the 2010 Commonwealth Games Commonwealth Games bronze medallists for South Africa Commonwealth Games rugby sevens players for South Africa Commonwealth Games bronze medallists in rugby sevens World Games gold medalists for South Africa World Games medalists in rugby sevens Medallists at the 2010 Commonwealth Games Medalists at the 2013 World Games 21st-century South African sportsmen Rugby union players from the Western Cape