WATCH | 'My confidence is back, my vision is clear,' says Sbu Nkosi as he bids to relaunch career

10 February 2023 - 18:30
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Bulls player Sbu Nkosi during a Springbok training session at Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch.
Bulls player Sbu Nkosi during a Springbok training session at Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch.
Image: Grant Pitcher/Gallo Images

Bulls and Springboks winger Sbu Nkosi has declared himself ready to relaunch his career that hit the skids late last year.

The 2019 Rugby World Cup winner was reported missing in December after going awol for about three weeks. The 27-year-old was later found at his father’s house in Emalahleni in Mpumalanga. He took a break to deal with his mental health issues and rejoined his teammates at training this week to prepare for the resumption of the United Rugby Championship (URC) and Champions Cup.

He was supposed to address the media for the first time on Friday but the briefing was postponed at the eleventh hour. However,  the Blue Bulls released a 36-minute video interview where he spoke about what he went through and his return to Loftus.

“I am good. I can say that I am out of the cage, I am feeling myself again and my spirit has been revived,” he said in the interview with Bulls media manager Lunga Kupiso.

“I felt I was the shadow of the man I was supposed to be and I needed to take a step back so that I can fix that before it became a problem. Things that were normally easy for me just became a little harder for me and I had to go to the drawing board to understand what was going on.

“Apart from a man fulfilling his potential or fulfilling his responsibility, in many different ways. The pressure gets to you because you have fans and family, people look towards us with these big bright eyes and we never want to disappoint.

“Being the emotional creature that I am, those things tend to take a heavier toll on people like me, I have been told I centralise everything and the emotion and I had to learn to handle that over the past two months.

“I can feel the beast in my stomach tomorrow, my confidence is back, my vision is clear. There was a lot of cloud that’s now disappeared. Those are the characteristics that I need to be myself.

Nkosi said he is excited to be back at training.

“I am very excited to come back and I have energy, pressure no but don’t expect perfection. Some people never get out of this, we lost Riky Rick last year because some people never get out of this. I am happy that I am back.”

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