Schalk Brits won't budge on retirement plan despite Saracens masterclass as he prepares to give it one last go
The South African will hang up his boots at the end of the season, but revealed that he could have already called it a day if it wasn't for Saracens' persuasion
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Your support makes all the difference.Saracens’ age-defying hooker Schalk Brits has no intention of performing a U-turn on his decision to retire from rugby at the end of the season, despite his man-of-the-match performance in the thrashing of Northampton Saints at Twickenham on Saturday.
The 36-year-old South African had to be talked into continuing for another year after playing a key role in Saracens’ retention of the European Champions Cup last May, despite dropping out of the starting line-up due to Jamie George’s emergence. Brits’ energy as an impact replacement often proves devastating when opposition teams begin to tire, but it has all taken its toll on his body and after three operations during the summer, he’s ready to call it a day.
For me it feels like it is the right time – there are younger guys coming through. It is time to sit back and have a beer and enjoy watching it and not just get bashed up,” Brits said after his man of the match performance in the 55-24 victory over Northampton Saints at Twickenham on Saturday.
“I had three operations in the off-season so it is enough. There was always an inkling to play another one, from a cultural point of view we have lost some big individuals so I have decided to do one more. The plan was to do a bit of studying – this will definitely be my last season.”
It is a minor sporting tragedy that Brits will retire next May with just 10 international caps to his name, and it’s performances like the one that blew Saints off the park at the weekend that add further scrutiny about how he was overlooked by the Springboks for so long.
But South Africa’s loss has been Saracens’ gain, and despite entering his 18th year of professional rugby this season, Brits showed he still has what it takes to start matches as well as finish them, with the hooker having a hand in four of the seven first-half tries that Sarries scores against Saints before adding the final try himself.
“To have a first half as close to perfect as we thought we can to start the season off was fantastic,” he said. “Northampton with the culture they have got and the fighting spirit, they came back in the second half so it was not quite as easy. There was not as much enjoyment as the first half.”
If you step away you step away, there is no return
The enjoyment will have to stop eventually though. For Brits, it will come at the end of the season, when he plans to turn his attention to his education off the pitch rather than on it. He initially wanted to call it a day this summer, but the retirements of Saracens’ stalwarts in Neil de Kock and Kelly Brown, added to the departures of Chris Ashton, Jim Hamilton and Petrus du Plessis, led Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall to talk Brits into giving him one more year.
“I did accountancy in Stellenbosch and the plan was to do either,” Brits said of his plan to focus on the next chapter of his life. “I spoke to Cambridge and Oxford to do an MBA, that was the plan professionally to stop playing rugby, play one year of varsity rugby and it is cheaper for me to study there, and get an unbelievable experience.
“My wife was not that excited about me going back to studying full-time with students, with three little ones, but now I am studying part-time.”
But then came the clamour for one more season, and despite having three operations on an orbital fracture in his cheek, the decision was made to pull on the Saracens jersey and give his all once again in an effort to get Saracens back to the top of English rugby as well as the European game
“It was not just Mark, it was teammates and friends,” Brits noted. “If you step away you step away, there is no return, you are not getting any younger. Culturally it is special and the people are special. I don’t see a team, I see individuals and they help me grow. It sounds a bit corny but it is that. The time you spend with friends and the time you spend as a rugby player. You only train three days a week so you can spend time with family and kids.
“There was an opportunity after this and they have already said they were not happy with me playing and studying for another year.
“I am 36 and it is time to say goodbye to this lovely game but there is still a season and my role is to play as best as I can and to help the other guys as well.”
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