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KITSIE RETIREMENT: 'It wasn’t a wheelchair discussion, it was a stop breathing discussion'

football25 February 2025 16:00| © SuperSport
By:Gavin Rich
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The decision to hang up his boots was only made in the last few days, but if you listened to Steven Kitshoff and John Dobson speak at what was the double World Cup winner and DHL Stormers’ most successful captain’s final press conference, it was obvious the writing was on the wall long before then.

Indeed, you can go back to September last year, when Kitshoff first went to specialists following a serious neck injury sustained playing in a Carling Currie Cup game against Griquas in Kimberley, to when many of those around them realised that they were unlikely to see him play again.

Ironically, the reason he was on the field at all that day in Kimberley was rooted in a need to get some game time ahead of a Springbok recall following a long injury layoff.

Had Kitshoff got through that game, he would probably have been returned to the Bok squad for the final weeks of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship in preparation for the November tour that followed.

Sadly for Kitshoff, he ended up having a different conversation with the Bok bosses than the one he’d hoped to have.

When he phoned Bok scrum coach Daan Human to tell him about the injury and the prognosis, the response from Human was one of somebody who accepted that it meant Kitshoff’s career as a rugby player was over.

As Kitshoff recalls: “I had quick chat with Daan over the phone and his first reaction when I told him about the exact situation was to thank me for an awesome rugby career and to wish me well on my next chapter in life.”

LUCKY TO JUST BE ALIVE

There was no question in other minds that Kitshoff’s day as a rugby player were numbered.

There was general acknowledgement that he was lucky to just be alive and not to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Although, as Stormers director of rugby Dobson recalls it, there was never any thought of wheelchairs.

The bullet that Kitshoff dodged was much bigger than that.

“There were obvious reasons we did not talk about it in the media. It was because the nature of the injury was so severe,” said Dobson.

“When an injury gets to the C1 and C2 vertebrae, meaning right at the top of the spinal cord, they call it the hangman’s vertebrae. As if it goes any higher than that it can effect the lungs. So it wasn’t a wheelchair discussion at all, it was a stop breathing discussion.”

In other words, Kitshoff was just lucky to be alive. But he was desperate to play again, and in the sense of him giving himself the best chance to do so, it was probably the right decision.

Right now it appears he has accepted it, whereas those months ago when he first got the diagnosis and first underwent what was a very serious operation he wasn’t quite ready to accept his playing career was done.

That was understandable, as it was so sudden.

PHILOSOPHICAL MOOD

Kitshoff was in a philosophical mood when he faced the Cape rugby media for the last time as a Stormers player at a press conference at the DHL Stadium on Tuesday.

“The way I look at it I am fortunate and blessed to still be able to walk and to breathe. 

My goal is to seize every day and put in some proper planning towards a new goal and a new career (away from rugby). I feel like a second lifeline was given to me,” said the 33-year-old.

“The initial eight weeks after I sustained the injury was very stressful. There were a lot of discussions on quality of life etc but I wanted to play again. Over the last couple of weeks when I saw the specialist it became clearer to me and I was able to make a clear decision. It wasn’t a case of not wanting to play, because I do want to play, but what life could look like in 10 years (if I did carry on playing). It was when I saw that with clarity that the decision came to call it quits.”

In a way, facing up to the reality that playing on wasn’t really an option made the timing of his retirement an easier thing to accept than it might otherwise have been.

“It’s not the way you want to end your career, being injured, but it does make it a bit easier. When you are going out on your own terms, it is easy to say to yourself that your body is still fine, you can play on and still make the most of your playing days,” says Kitshoff.

“But when you do that you have to bear in mind that you are keeping out someone new who is coming through and weigh that up. So maybe it was a good thing that mine was a clear cut decision. But while it made it easier, it was still a tough decision to make.”

REALISTIC ABOUT 2027 CHANCES

If there is a small window to Kitshoff’s lack of selfishness, something that is a hallmark of his standing as a leader within the team environment, in that statement, it is also evident in how he answers the question on whether he is disappointed to be missing out on the chance to make it a three-peat of RWC titles in Australia two and a half years from now.

“When the next World Cup arrives I will be 35, which is quite old,” he said.

“There is such great young talent coming through in my position. Gerhard Steenekamp and Jan-Hendrik (Wessels) are both playing really well and it is right that there is an opportunity for them. Winning two World Cups was special, up there with the best days of my life alongside my wedding day.

“To stay involved would have been great, but I understood that I was getting older and not being so young anymore meant I would fall behind others when it came to ball carrying and working off the ball and general work-rate.”

EAGER TO GIVE SOMETHING BACK

In keeping with his unselfish attitude as well as his huge gratitude for the career he was able to enjoy, Kitshoff is eager to give something back to the sport that has made him who he is.

“There is nothing concrete but I would like to stay involved in rugby in some way if I can. I took so much from rugby that I would like to give something back, whether it is in youth development or consulting. I have gathered so much knowledge on the way through my career and would like to pass it on.”

And from his part Dobson, who spoke of Kitshoff’s massive contribution and influence off the field, would be eager to embrace the idea of having Kitshoff involved in time with the team as they plot the way forward.

“From my side I think Kitsie needs a bit of time away to focus on himself and on the Bomb Squad (the beer brand that is Kitshoff’s first foray into post-rugby business), but in time I think he would be great to have around in a mentorship role,” said Dobson.

“I don’t think it is necessarily the obvious transition from being a player to scrum coaching when it comes to Kitsie. He brings so much more than that, he brings so much more value than that. I didn’t want to make excuses, but when we lost him at the start of the season it was like the marrow was taken out of the side. He just brings so much and I am not talking about his on field contributions when I say that.”

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