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The 28-year-old South African who turned his back on Top 14 to farm sheep and goats

(Photo by Steve Haag/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

Ex-South African under-20s international Paul Jordaan is finished with professional rugby at just the age of 28. It was last May, just two months after agreeing on a contract extension through to 2021, that La Rochelle announced that the Junior World Cup-winning centre was leaving. Now, eleven months later he has confirmed he is finished with the sport for a life on the farm.

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Jordaan arrived in Europe in 2016 following five Super Rugby seasons with the Sharks and his initial two years at La Rochelle were highly productive. Injuries became an issue in his third year, yet the club still offered him an agreement that somehow wound up getting torn up within a matter of weeks.

At the time of his sudden departure, Jordaan remained mysterious about the reasons for his choice. “What an adventure,” he posted at the time. “A place that has helped me grow not only as a player but also as a person. 

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“I have had immense disappointments and joys over the past three years, both on the field and outside. I made incredible friends who are now my family. Each of you has had an impact on my life in one way or another, I am very grateful to you.”

Eleven months on, he has finally lifted the lid on his surprise exit, telling sarugbymag.co.za that he has no regrets about quitting. “I feel like I left rugby on my own terms, on my own decision. I’m now doing something I really like, so it was not that difficult,” he said, explaining why he decided to settle on the family farm near Durban.

“We raise sheep and goats. We have a few Kalahari red goats and we also have a hunting trip business with American customers, but the past few years have been difficult for the company. We are emerging from a period of five years of drought. For a long time now, I wanted to come back and help. 

“I’m done (with rugby). I decided it was time to hang up my boots and start my life after rugby. When you are a player, you live in a bubble and many boys leave it too late. I don’t want to make this mistake. I feel like it was the right time for me to leave the rugby scene and start my next life.”

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

43 Go to comments
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