{"id":321549,"date":"2025-12-17T20:16:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T20:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/321549\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T20:16:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T20:16:06","slug":"springbok-enforcer-bakkies-botha-names-the-player-who-scared-him-page-2-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/321549\/","title":{"rendered":"Springbok Enforcer Bakkies Botha Names the Player Who &#8216;Scared&#8217; Him &#8211; Page 2 of 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\ud83c\udf40 Paul O\u2019Connell \u2013 The Red Giant of Ireland<\/p>\n<p>Bio:<br \/>A towering figure in Irish rugby, Paul O\u2019Connell earned 115 caps for his country and captained the Lions on their 2009 tour of South Africa. <\/p>\n<p>Renowned for his line-out brilliance and sheer work rate, O\u2019Connell was the heartbeat of Ireland\u2019s pack and one of the most respected forwards of his generation.<\/p>\n<p>Botha said:<br \/>\u201cHe\u2019s a world-class player and it\u2019s always great to play against world-class opposition. A phenomenal leader and player. He brought something to a team that\u2019s special. A scary opponent at times.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ruck.co.uk\/springbok-enforcer-bakkies-botha-names-the-player-who-scared-him\/3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CONTINUES ON PAGE THREE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Like this:<\/p>\n<p>Like Loading&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"sd-link-color\"\/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\ud83c\udf40 Paul O\u2019Connell \u2013 The Red Giant of Ireland Bio:A towering figure in Irish rugby, Paul O\u2019Connell earned&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-321549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}