Springboks coach reveals he almost took his own life playing rugby

By Priscilla Jepchumba

After a life-threatening accident, the former half-back, who became the All Blacks' attacking maestro, spent six weeks in a Japanese hospital.

Initially, doctors gave him a “50 percent chance of survival.” The playmaker sustained the injury while playing for Japanese team Wild Knights against Kintetsu Liners. Despite feeling unwell, he persevered and continued playing.

But after the game he continued to feel ill and developed a fever. The doctors sent him to the hospital, where they diagnosed a pancreatic rupture.

“I was completely taken aback and didn't see it coming,” Brown said at the time. “The doctors said it was pretty bad and they would have to operate to save my life.”

During an interview with the Behind the Ruck PodcastBrown spoke about his near-death experience and the difficulties he faced returning to the field.

“It was life-threatening. When I got to the hospital they only gave me a 50 percent chance of survival and I spent two weeks in intensive care with my intestines cut,” the coach said.

“I had six tubes coming out of my stomach trying to drain the bile that the pancreas produces to digest food. The danger of a ruptured pancreas is that the bile will flow through the organs and digest them, which is life-threatening.”

He was only 33 years old at the time, but he managed to get back on his feet and play for three more years before ending his football career in 2011.

For someone his age who is normally very active, the road to recovery was certainly not easy.

“So I spent six weeks in the hospital and came out at 72kg, so I had lost 12kg. Those six weeks were tough for me because I'm not a good person who enjoys just lying around in the hospital and doing nothing,” Brown added.

“I wanted to get out, I wanted to compete and I wanted to play rugby again. So it was a tough time but once I got out I made a plan to try and play again.

“My goal was to be back for the final of the Japanese competition, so I had three months to get back in shape, gain my weight back and gain enough confidence to feel good when I hit the floor again.”

After the end of his playing career, Brown began his teaching career, which eventually brought him to the Springboks coaching staff under Rassie Erasmus in 2024.

However, during his stay in Japan, he accepted a position as player-coach with the Wild Knights and that was when his coaching career really began.
The number of international players that Japanese teams could sign was limited, and that remains the case today. The former playmaker said his passion for teaching blossomed when his teammates asked him for help.

“Luckily for me, in the early 2000s in Japan, there were only one or two foreigners per team, so the Japanese players would always come to one of them for advice, or they would come to one of them to train with one of them and improve their game,” he added.

Brown said he enjoyed helping the Japanese players improve and later, while still under contract, he was asked to become a player-coach.

He added that being a player-coach taught him a lot about coaching and different coaching approaches and that it probably made him a better player because he tried to coach the players while also having to prove himself on the pitch and take responsibility.

Brown was probably about thirty years old when he was hired as a player-manager, and his body somehow held out longer than anyone thought.