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'He was just a brilliant dude, a brilliant dude that filled the cracks of a post-rugby career with s***'
Benjamin Kayser, a former teammate of the late Christophe Dominici who took his own life last week at the age of 48, has paid the France great a tremendous tribute while appearing on the latest episode of The Rugby Pod. The 37-cap France hooker grew up with a poster of Dominici on his wall before graduating into the Stade Francais set-up and being in the same dressing room with his hero.
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Twelve years younger than Dominici, who signed off from Test rugby with France in 2007 with 67 caps, Kayser only retired from playing in June 2019 and his own difficult adjustment to life outside the game has left him believing more now needs to be done to help retired players following the tragedy involving Dominici, who jumped to his death in a Parisian park.
Paying tribute to Dominici during an appearance on The Rugby Pod with Andy Goode and Jim Hamilton, Kayser passionately described his own retirement situation before reminiscing about his fallen colleague and explaining why help is needed post-rugby, especially in France.
“With the intensity of the physicality, we’re special animals. We thrive on that pressure, we thrive on hitting people,” he said about being a rugby player. “I finished on June 16, 2019, and I was like, ‘Stuff it, I’m going on holiday. I’m not doing anything’.
“I wasn’t training at all. After five weeks my wife said you have got to do something. You’re losing your s***. I was getting regrettable. You lose your temper pretty quick. You get frustrated very quick just because normally day in day out, after a scrum session I was pretty chilled. My body was a wreck and that outlet I didn’t have any more.
“I have been thinking a lot about the fact that if we are brothers on the pitch we need to be brothers after. France is maybe not a good example of that. They take you in, chew you up and chuck you out. There are a few examples of guys that really scare me because I didn’t know where they were going.
“Domi was an extraordinary human being. He was charismatic, flamboyant, incredibly smart. He was tiny, absolutely tiny, but chuck a ball in the middle of the room and he would tear to pieces any big fella. He was the type of guy I would have followed anywhere.
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“I can’t say that I was friends with him because I had too much respect and I had a poster of him growing up and falling in love with rugby. I fell in love with Stade Francais because that is where I started when I was 14 and he was the man. He was killing it every weekend. There was the ’99 World Cup, the semi-final at Twickenham that everyone remembers, and that is who he was.
“But he was the type of guy who would never motivate the guys by telling them you should take this right-hand pass this way and do this ice bath. He was, ‘Strap a pair on, show everybody how big your balls are and just follow me. If you follow me nothing will ever happen to you’.
“I was thinking this guy is so small but he is so driven, so passionate, so full of confidence that I have to do ten times what he does. That was his way of being a leader. Especially when I was young he helped me a lot. Like, he would never speak to me when things were going right but every time he saw I was pretty much s****ing myself at the beginning of my career, the mental aspect especially with lineout throwing.
“Playing rugby is easy but going back to the lineout, the stress of the crowd, the people, whatever… he was the type of guy who would just put his hand around your back and say just follow me, you will be alright. He would crack you a joke, talk about going out, doing whatever it was just to get your mind off things and to me he was brilliant.
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“I didn’t have any boots at the time. That night he called the Nike guy, got me a contract with them for the next five years. I tried to say thanks by giving him a bottle of wine. He chucked it back into my car and said this is the last time you try to give me something. He just gave everything, never asked for anything back.
“He was just a brilliant dude, a brilliant dude that filled the cracks of a post-rugby career with s***, that struggled to find something exhilarating enough to fill those gaps of this mental side. We need an outlet, we need something and he didn’t get it unfortunately and what happened this summer was just a bit too much to swallow.
“He was the frontman for these Qatari investors who were going to buy Beziers, an old legendary French club and take them back from the second division… the mayor of Beziers hated to see that those Qatari were here so there was a bit of that political side of rugby that we don’t like.
“The project ended up being chucked in the bin because they didn’t trust the investors. He [Dominici] took that really badly because he was the face of it. He was sort of made to look like a fool a little bit… and then this s*** happened.”
"I’m watching him referee the scrum, it was nothing worse than shocking"
– Sounds like Romain Poite is off @TheRugbyPod Christmas card list following his @autumnnations display at Llanelli#AutumnNationsCup #WALvENGhttps://t.co/mghl9YRADJ
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) December 1, 2020
Top-quality chat from former French International and Jim's new English teacher @BenjaminKayser on this week's episode?
Have a listen ?
iTunes – https://t.co/jxbVv4Pmou
Acast – https://t.co/w8PlocwkND pic.twitter.com/MjhtnZJ7RP— The Rugby Pod (@TheRugbyPod) December 1, 2020
Comments on RugbyPass
Good to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
17 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
7 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
17 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
7 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
7 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to commentsIt couldn’t have been Ryan Crotty. He wasn’t selected in either World Cup side - they chose Money Bill instead. And Money Bill only cared about himself, and that manager he had, not the team.
26 Go to commentsYawn 🥱 nobody would give a hoot about this new trophy. End of the day we just have to beat Ireland and NZ this year then they can finally shut up 🤐
17 Go to commentsTalking bout Ryan Crotty? Heard Crotty say in a interview once that SBW doesen't care about the team . He went on to say that whenever they lost a big game, SBW would be happy as if nothing happened, according to him someone who cares would look down.. Personally I think Crotty is in the wrong, not for feeling gutted but for expecting others 2 be like him… I have been a bad loser forever as it matters so much to me but good on you SBW for being able to see the bigger picture….
26 Go to commentsThis sounds like a WWE idea so Americans can also get excited about rugby, RUGBY NEEDS A INTERNATIONAL CALENDER .. The rugby Championship and Six Nations can be held at same time, top 3 of six nations and top 3 of Rugby championship (6 nations should include Georgia AND another qualifying country while Fiji, Japan and Samoa/Tonga qualifier should make out 6 Southern teams).. Scrap June internationals and year end tours. Have a Elite top six Cup and the Bottom 6 in a secondary comp….
17 Go to commentsThe rugby championship would be even stronger with Fiji in it… I know it doesen’t fit the long term plans of NZ or Aus but you are robbing a whole nation of being able to see their best players play for Fiji…. Every second player in NZ and AUS teams has Fijian surnames… shame on you!!! World rugby won’t step in either as France and England has now also joined in…. I guess where money is involved it will always be the poor countries missing out….
84 Go to commentsNo surprise there. How hard can it be to pick a ball off the ground and chuck it to a mate? 😂
2 Go to commentsSometimes people just like a moan mate!
7 Go to commentsexcellent idea ! rugby needs this 💪
17 Go to comments9 Brumbies! What a joke! The best performing team in Oz! Ditch Skelton for Swain or Neville. Ryan Lonergan ahead of McDermott any day! Best selection bolter is Toole … amazing player
14 Go to commentsI like this, but ultimately rugby already has enough trophies. Trying to make more games “consequential" might prove to be a fools errand, although this is a less bad idea than some others. Minor quibble with the title of the article; it isn’t very meaningful to say the boks are the unofficial world champions when it would be functionally impossible for the Raeburn trophy not to be held by the world champions. There’s a period of a few months every 4 years when there is no “unofficial” world champion, and the Raeburn trophy is held by the actual world champions.
17 Go to comments