A southern-hemisphere player coming north to play as he approaches the end of his career is hardly news.

Lote Tuqiri, 30, the former Australia wing, has just arrived at Leicester, for example. But a rugby player, aged 26, who has won ten caps and might have expected more, casting himself into exile by leaving his country; well, that is a story. Why would he do it?

It has happened at Bath, where Luke Watson, who was born and brought up in South Africa, was unveiled yesterday as the club’s latest signing and one of the men charged with helping to improve their fortunes. The West Country club lie eleventh of the 12 teams in the Guinness Premiership with one victory and only nine points, 19 fewer than Saracens, the leaders.

To understand the significance of Watson’s departure from the country of his birth, it is necessary to fill in some of his family background. In 1980, when the Lions were making a controversial tour of a South Africa in the grip of the apartheid regime, one of the most strident voices against their visit was that of now Archbishop Desmond Tutu. By going to South Africa, Tutu said, the Lions “had made the other chaps feel a little better”.

Another loud voice against the Lions belonged to a player named Dan Watson, who lived in Port Elizabeth. Four years earlier, Watson had played centre for Eastern Province and had won a trial for the Springboks as a wing, but then joined a local black club in East London, which was illegal under apartheid legislation.

That club were affiliated to the South African Rugby Union, a body that sought non-racial, not multiracial, rugby and did not acknowledge the whites-only South African Rugby Board (SARB). By coming to South Africa, “the Lions have alienated many blacks and implicitly told the SARB “we approve of your policies”, Watson, then 29, said.

Dan Watson, whose nickname was Cheeky, is the father of Luke, and clearly the acorn has not fallen far from the tree. Luke, 26, was at odds with the rugby authorities in South Africa even before he made his infamous speech at the University of Cape Town RFC in October 2008, which has led, directly or indirectly, to his arrival in Britain.

In the speech, he claimed that he was selected for the Springboks only as a political token. “The problem with South African rugby is that it is controlled by Dutchmen,” Watson allegedly said 13 months ago. He also said that he had been used as a political pawn — selected not on merit but as a result of the quota system — and at times had felt like “vomiting on” the Springbok jersey.

So the man with the heavy stubble and easy way with words is a political activist, is he? Sound like a bit of a rotten apple for Bath to be signing? Hardly. The genuine admiration one has for his family and what they have stood for down the years in South Africa, particularly during the apartheid regime, is increased by Luke Watson’s rugby skills and the thoughtfulness he brings as he starts a two-year contract as a back-row forward.

“He is pretty experienced for 26,” Steve Meehan, the Bath head coach, said. “He can play a couple of positions in the back row. He brings a great deal of freshness, plus he comes from a successful rugby country.”

Words of praise from the coach are to be expected, but why would Watson choose to leave South Africa and does he realise that he will probably never play for his country again? “I accept that quite possibly I won’t and I am happy about that,” Watson said. “I tend to be a man of my word and so when I say to Bath, ‘I want to come here and I want to contribute,’ I mean it. I am not coming here to tour the northern hemisphere.

“I am not coming here to earn the pound. I am not coming here to extend my fame. I am coming here to play rugby and for me, realising that it puts my international ambition on the back foot, I haven’t got a problem with that. It is a decision I made and a sacrifice I am willing to take.

“I took all the ramifications and consequences of my action into consideration and I believe it is the best one for me on and off the field. I look forward, not back. The past does not do much for me. It just helps me learn from my mistakes. I am happy. There is no sadness.”