Career
He spent his entire childhood in Durban and played most of his rugby as a South African junior, representing South African Schools and even captaining the under-21 national team to victory in the 2002 U21 Rugby World Cup. In the same year, he made his debut in the then-Super 12 for the Sharks. However, at the end of 2002, he chose to move to Australia, for which he was qualified to play by virtue of having an Australia-born paternal grandmother.
Rathbone joined the Brumbies for the 2003 season. After considerable speculation in the rugby world over which country he would represent at Test level, he opted for the Wallabies, which resulted in Rathbone being heavily criticised in much of the South African press. Rathbone made his Test debut in June 2004 against Scotland, and went on to score a hat trick of tries against England the following week. His form in the June Tests earned him a starting wing position for that year's Tri Nations Series. During that competition, he rubbed salt into the South African wounds by scoring a match-winning try against his former countrymen in Perth. When the Wallabies went on tour that November, he scored a pair of tries against Scotland at Murrayfield, but suffered a groin injury that kept him out of the year's final Test against England.
In 2005,Rathbone was injured for most of the year, missing the Autumn series of Tests. In these tests, wingers Drew Mitchell and Mark Gerrard played well, and cemented the Wallaby wing spots ahead of the incumbent Rathbone.
In 2006 Rathbone has had a relatively quiet Super 14 season, but over the summer break of 2005-06 he got married to his longtime girlfriend in their hometown of Durban.
In 2008, after 15 months out of rugby due to knee surgery for a torn patella tendon, Rathbone signed a Shute Shield contract with the east-Sydney based team, Easts.
In 2009, after many injuries that have seen him sidelined, he decided to retire.
On August 23, 2012, Rathbone announced his attention to return to professional Rugby after 3 years out of the game. Rathbone signed a 1-year contract with his old club, the Brumbies, with an option of extending should he have a successful return. .
Read more about this topic: Clyde Rathbone
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