Vodacom Bulls coach Jake White says Springbok winger Kurt-Lee Arendse might not return to Pretoria from Japan in time to be eligible for the Vodacom URC playoffs.
Arendse’s sabbatical deal with the Mitsubishi Sagamihara Dynaboars saw him make four appearances for the Bulls in the URC last October before heading to Japan after his Test commitments with the Springboks in November.
While the plan was for him to return to Pretoria in May, ahead of the URC playoffs, that may not be the case.
“One of the risks when you give a guy a sabbatical is that you don’t know how deep into the competition his team will play,” White said on Friday ahead of the Bulls’ north-south derby against the Stormers in Cape Town.
“It doesn’t look like Kurt-Lee’s club will make the playoffs but they are near the bottom of the log [10th in Japan Rugby League One Division 1] and could be involved in promotion-relegation matches [after the regular season].”
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White said Arendse had to be back in South Africa by a specific cut-off date according to URC rules or he could not feature in the playoffs.
“There is a chance he will have to stay there and play more games than we anticipated, which isn’t ideal, because it takes him out of the back end of our competition.
“But that is one of the things you can’t control if you give a player a sabbatical, which is the way you keep him in South Africa [and prevent him from signing a permanent deal with an overseas club].
“At this point in time, we we’re not banking on the fact that he’ll be back in time.”
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