Beyond the try line: Why every rugby player needs a parallel career
Playing professional rugby is a thrilling but short-lived and high-risk career.
Picture: Pexels
702's Gugs Mhlungu spoke to Sports Physician at Wits and Sports medicine consultant to SA Rugby, Professor Jon Patricios.
Listen to their conversation in the audio clip below.
"...any professional sports person, but particularly in rugby, needs a sense of perspective in that it is very unlikely that they're going to be able to earn a sustainable living out of playing rugby forever."
- Prof Jon Patricios, Sports Physician and Sports medicine consultant to SA Rugby
Playing rugby professionally can come with lots of fame and perks, but the reality is that it's a short-lived and high-risk career.
Patricios says players, especially the ones who are still young, and their parents need to understand the importance of having other careers alongside the sport to provide lifelong financial stability.
With injuries, short careers, and the uncertainty of selection, Patricios stresses that it's critical to build a parallel career.
"Rugby is a wonderful game. It's a game that has many people with different ranges of skills, different builds, and it is demanding in terms of its physicality, in particular. And one doesn't know whether the injury will strike or the end of the career will come, or you might be selected."
- Prof Jon Patricios, Sports Physician and Sports medicine consultant to SA Rugby
Patricios cautions against building your entire identity around being a high-profile player.
"Don't let the game define you because that rug can be pulled from under you very quickly."
- Prof Jon Patricios, Sports Physician and Sports medicine consultant to SA Rugby
He adds that there have been numerous cases of athletes struggling with severe mental health challenges after retiring suddenly from the sport without a plan beyond rugby.
Patricios stresses that it's crucial to see rugby as just one part of your identity, like with any other job, especially because of how intense the spotlight is during your playing years and how quickly it fades afterwards.
"So for many reasons, I think rugby needs to be contextualised as part of who you are, almost like any other career, but more so in professional sport just because of the high exposure at that particular time and then the drop off once it's over."
- Prof Jon Patricios, Sports Physician and Sports medicine consultant to SA Rugby
Scroll up to listen to the full conversation