If you were new to rugby and encountered Shayne Bolton, you'd be surprised to learn the 24-year-old was South African.A Pretoria native, his strong Irish accent is striking and also quite charming.
At times, he sounds more like an Irishman who's lived in South Africa for three years, rather than the other way around.When he arrived in Ireland in 2021, he was a complete unknown.
After two years with the Cheetahs academy, Bolton couldn’t get an extension with the Bloemfontein franchise, but continued to play for the University of Free State in the Varsity Cup where he caught the eye of Connacht and their former head coach Andy Friend.Looking back on his signing, current head coach Pete Wilkins admits the province were taking a bit of a punt."We plucked him out of a backwater in South Africa and saw him as a project," Wilkins said of Bolton this week.Even if his Irish accent contradicts it, Bolton admits it was tough to settle in Galway initially when he arrived in the summer of 2021, having just turned 21-years-old."I was so nervous.
It was my first time travelling alone too," he says."It was in Covid time, the plane was empty. I had my own row, it was all open.