Sbu Nkosi’s rugby future unclear as Bulls assess their options

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA - SEPTEMBER 20: Sbu Nkosi during the South Africa men's national rugby team training session at Durban High School on September 20, 2022 in Durban, South Africa. (Photo by Steve Haag/Gallo Images)

By Craig Ray

8 Dec 2022

The Bulls and Springbok wing Sbu Nkosi will have to work together to find a way forward after a frightening ordeal.

The Bulls are taking legal advice on a way forward in their relationship with star wing Sbu Nkosi, who was absent without leave for three weeks.

After Nkosi’s disappearance, which raised fears for his personal safety, the Bulls, with help from a private security firm, eventually located the player on Monday at his father’s residence in Emalahleni.

A relieved CEO Edgar Rathbone said the club wants to help an employee, and a person once it was established that Nkosi was battling to mentally cope personally and professionally.

But the Bulls also have a business to run and are paying a player, who went AWOL, a huge salary. Contract termination is still an option, hence the legal advice.

It might sound callous to be considering Nkosi’s future in the immediate aftermath of what has just occurred, but no sensible business operator wouldn’t be weighing up all options.

By revealing he has mental health issues an entire chain reaction has now started for Nkosi. He will have to subject himself to mental health assessments by professionals, attend a stipulated number of sessions and go through a thorough support programme. The cost of all of this will be covered by either the Bulls or MyPlayers, the players’ trade union.

Sbu Nkosi at a Springbok captain's run at Kings Park in Durban on 23 September 2022. (Photo: Steve Haag / Gallo Images)

The assessment will also include excavations to uncover the source of his anxiety and mental health issues, which is crucial to the outcome of this process.

At the heart of the matter is a person first, an athlete second. Nkosi needs professional help for his mental state and he might need help in other areas of his life too.

Rathbone made this very clear. The Bulls want to help “Sbu the person, not Sbu the rugby player”. But the CEO was naturally cautious about committing to retaining Nkosi’s services in the longer term.

“It’s difficult to put a timeline on it (Nkosi’s rehabilitation). We need to give him his space to get back to full health,” Rathbone said.

“We are arranging that support for the time when he’s ready to get that support. We are there to give him his space. I said to him that our goal is to get him back on a rugby field and feeling like a champion again, even if that means it’s not at the Bulls.

“If he needs a new start, that’s fine but it’s our job to get him ready.”

Mental health struggles and the impact they have on performance in the workplace are covered by legislation in employment law. The law wouldn’t allow a company to terminate someone’s employment if they had cancer, for instance.

Similarly, termination would not be legal for a mental health problem diagnosis. Anxiety and clinical depression are not fireable offences in and of themselves. But if it were brought on by certain lifestyle choices, it could result in a different outcome.

Relief

The overriding emotion when the Bulls announced that World Cup-winning wing Nkosi had been located after being missing for three weeks, was relief.

In a country where dozens of people are murdered every day and hundreds more the victim of violence, to hear that Nkosi was alive and physically unharmed at his father’s home was one small ray of light in this upsetting episode.

In South Africa, missing persons are rarely found alive after three days, let alone three weeks. So, relief it was for those of us not personally acquainted with Nkosi, but admirers of his work.

Read in Daily Maverick: “Springbok wing Sbu Nkosi safe and physically unhurt”

He is, after all, a World Cup-winner, a lethal finisher and at 26, still potentially the best wing in a country that produces more world-class wings than Nando’s on a busy Friday night.

To wake up to the news that Nkosi’s talent still has a chance to glitter in future, was a gift to rugby lovers. And no doubt it was a present to those even closer to him.

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But being physically well does not mean that mentally Nkosi is in a good space. His road back to the top is going to be hard because what is in the public domain is only a small part of this story. Nkosi, based on his subsequent comments and those of the Bulls, underlined that he needs professional help.

Nkosi spoke openly to News24 about his “disappearance” in the hours after he was located, and Bulls CEO Rathbone later called a press conference for the following day to field questions.

‘Not trained for this’

Rathbone wanted to be as transparent as he could be. He detailed the events of the 48 hours or so leading up to Nkosi’s discovery, but also of the days and weeks prior to Nkosi’s reunification with his employers.

“We’re obviously not trained for scenarios like this,” Rathbone told a media conference.

“Yes, I’m sure we made mistakes along the way, but what we need to keep in mind through all of this is that there’s a player’s reputation that needs to be managed as well.

“His safety was also a concern. It’s about finding the balance in those two elements. I think the steps that we took in terms of visiting all his known residences, contacting family members, phoning him myself basically every day on all the known numbers that we’ve got, in the end led us to the police, unfortunately.

Sbu Nkosi in training with the Springboks at Durban High School on 20 September 2022. (Photo: Steve Haag / Gallo Images)

“But their help wasn’t really forthcoming. Luckily for us, our partners (private security company) SSG stepped in and really gave us momentum, as did the media, and 48 hours later we were able to find him.”

It is clear that Nkosi is suffering from mental health issues, which he freely admitted in his interview with News24. Rathbone’s later explanation confirmed this view, but there are other threads.

Why is Nkosi struggling? What other external factors have driven an outwardly successful athlete to this precipice and where does he go from here?

How much responsibility lies with the Bulls for not intervening and how much with the player for not making more use of the squad’s in-house psychologist, Henning Gericke, or for better communication with his employers about his state?

At this stage the blame game won’t be constructive. The Bulls, at least subsequently to Nkosi’s reappearance, have shown compassion and caring. Rathbone’s personal touch is a far cry from the recent past, where depression and anxiety were taboo subjects.

But there is still much to unpack and a long way for Nkosi to go to find personal peace. Whether that involves rugby at the Bulls, rugby anywhere else, or rugby at all, will ultimately depend on several factors.

It’s unclear whether there were any other red flags for the Bulls before the start of this episode. Nkosi did miss one team meeting on the team’s recent United Rugby Championship tour to Europe and was sent home.

In retrospect, that seems a very harsh punishment for missing a single meeting, so perhaps it was the culmination of other issues?

What is obvious is that there is a young man, living in the public eye, battling to cope with deep issues. He needs to recover. At this stage, it is all that matters. DM

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‘Not trained for this’