Oct 17,2024
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. It was crazy, masks on and couldn't really speak to anybody. The airports were so quiet, I didn't know where to go or what to do.
"I was so nervous travelling on my own and then I had to quarantine for 14 days in a hotel in Dublin because I was coming from a red-listed country.
"I was in the hotel for two weeks on my own. At least I had a bit of gym equipment that Connacht sent up. That was really tough at the start, I was just on FaceTime all the time talking to family and friends back home.
"But I made it through that and I was excited to get stuck in and start training and learning."
His debut, against the Ospreys in November 2021, saw him score a sensational try from inside centre, but he was something of an enigma in those first two seasons. When he played, he often impressed, but he struggled for game time and dealt with injury problems which limited him to just five games.
Bolton admits it took him some time to get used to his first fully professional rugby environment.
"I came in from college rugby, so I had a lot to learn about professional rugby, a professional set-up and it took longer than I expected when I came over.
"I've had so much help from the players, my friends, the coaches and everyone around.
"They've helped me grow, when I came over I was mostly a centre but I moved to wing then and so I had to learn, not a new position, but one I hadn't played much in. I had to learn that quite fast.
"It did take a good few months, at the start it wasn't very easy.
"I was struggling to find accommodation and that kind of stuff, but I settled in quite quickly with the lads, the team environment was helpful. Every weekend, every off day there'd be somebody asking me to come for coffee with them.
"Everyone was so inviting and now I feel like one of them. I've made great friends here, I'm enjoying life now," he added.
The revelation, it seems, has been his move to the wing, with Connacht utilising his pace and powerful ball-carrying ability to get him in possession in areas where he has more space to move.
What started out as an "experiment," according to Wilkins, now looks like being his position long-term.
"Obviously the competition for places here at centre is pretty strong and then really it was a bit of experimentation, trying him as that power winger on the right wing as it was at that point, and he's just thrived on it, getting his hands on the ball and a bit more space around him.
"So there's more to come from him, I think there's incredible explosiveness and just a real confidence about him when he's got the ball in hand," the Connacht head coach added.
While he still had to deal with injuries last season, he consistently impressed when he featured for Connacht, while he has also played in three of their first four games this season.
Interestingly, he’s also made his way onto the radar of the Irish coaching staff. Bolton was included on the Emerging Ireland tour which would have seen him return to Bloemfontein where he had played his university rugby, but a knee laceration picked up in the opening round of the URC away to Munster meant he couldn't travel.
"I was really disappointed [to miss it], I was very excited to go on the tour and it's just to learn from all the coaches and all the players, but one thing that kept me positive is that I wasn't out for too long.
"I've been out for quite a few months with some injuries and I was thankful that this one wasn't serious at all. I was really positive just to look forward to the next couple of games."
Born and raised in Pretoria, Bolton (above) qualifies for Ireland through his grandmother, Noirin Stapleton, who lives close to his family home.
Noirin was born in Blackrock, Dublin and moved to England at a young age after her parents were killed in a car accident, before eventually settling in South Africa after spending several years living in Zimbabwe.
"I'm very close to my gran, she lives close by to my parents in South Africa and I saw her every Sunday or every second Sunday.
"She comes from Ireland and I was always aware that my family comes from here.
"It was really exciting when I got the opportunity, a lot of people don't get the opportunity, so I was really happy and was looking forward to trying to make a difference this side."
The silver lining on missing the Emerging Ireland tour is that he was still able to make two appearances for Connacht in that time, while he now knows he’s very much on the radar of Andy Farrell.
And with Connacht set to welcome Leinster to the Dexcom Stadium on Saturday, he knows there is another opportunity to impress.
He said: "Leinster, if you make a mistake, they pounce on it. They're very good at converting those opportunities and scoring tries from your mistakes.
"We'll be looking to minimise our mistakes and take their mistakes create them into tries or points.
"I don't think we'll be changing much [from the defeat to Ulster]. We scored a good few tries in most games, we scored four or five tries a game, so I think our attack and everything is working perfectly, we're very positive."
