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On the Brink: 'Freak accident' won't slow Leicester Tigers new backrow brute

By Jamie Lyall
(Photo by Martin Hunter/Getty Images)

Cyle Brink is an obsessive, unabashed adrenaline junkie. As a kid in Johannesburg, he would soup up cars and tear around the bush with his pals, screaming away to discover some new fabled spot for adventure that had been whispered along the boy-racer grapevine. He loves bikes and boats and jet skis and his idea of the perfect day out is juddering around the rugged African expanses in a Land Cruiser.

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“We did what we could to the motors to make them as fast as possible,” he says. “I had mates who were mechanics or big into the car scene, so you knew who to take your stuff to.

“You’d hear about a place and decide to go drive out there. Sometimes you’d get there and there’d be nothing, other times it was quite lekka.

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“We went all over the place. We enjoyed driving to a big dam about an hour out of Jo’burg, but we’d go anywhere, it didn’t really matter.”

Just occasionally, though, somebody needs to apply the flanker’s brakes.

This year, the destructive brute attacked pre-season with the Lions, longing to reassert himself as one of his country’s premier back-rows after a dreadful spate of injuries. A move to Leicester Tigers was negotiated for the new northern hemisphere season. Then, pop. His ankle blew, and with it, Super Rugby evaporated.

“There was nobody near me, it was a freak accident,” he says. “One minute, it was fine; the next, it was buggered.

“Personally, I could have taken a bit more responsibility because I think I was overtraining at the time. Coming out of a long pre-season, you’re pushing to be as ready as you can, and maybe you are pushing a bit too hard and not investing enough in recovery.

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“We’d had a three-month pre-season and I was still focusing so much on training. As a player, you need to find that balance. All the okes that play until they’re 37 or 38 find that balance as quickly as possible.”

When it comes to luck, Brink must have walked under every ladder and booted every black cat from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Two years earlier, days from making his Springboks debut, a team-mate landed on him in training and wrecked his knee. He was still recovering from shoulder nerve damage at the time and suspects the treatment given to ease pressure on the area might in fact have destabilised his joints.

“I was on medication to relax the muscles around that [shoulder] nerve and get it moving and functioning properly again,” Brink says. “That obviously played a role in weakening something in my knee and when we were doing the contact session just before we played Argentina, I went into a tackle with one or two okes and somehow or other it snapped.

“It was a very confusing time. But I had lots of support around me, my parents, family and friends, and that obviously helped. I don’t think I cooked dinner for myself once in that first month of recovery. And then just accepting that everything happens for a reason and maybe it just wasn’t your time. Get better, come back stronger.

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“I made a full recovery from that and speaking to the doctor, the way he fixed that knee, it should be stronger than a normal knee.”

Leicester Tigers Brink
(Photo by Steve Haag/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

The ankle is coming right now too, so that by the time the COVID-19 pandemic eases and Brink can fly to England, he should be almost ready for full-contact training.

At 26, he feels he has done all he can at the Lions, his home union where he came of age and has played for eight years. This was to be his fourth Super Rugby campaign before fate intervened.

Built like a whisky barrel with limbs, Brink is the sort of dynamite-fuelled breakaway who ought to thrive in the English game. He is immensely formidable on the carry and in the tackle and a back-row combination with Jordan Taufua and Hanro Liebenberg is an exhilarating prospect.

“Before I got injured, I felt I needed to do something new – I can’t stay comfortable for the rest of my life or I’m not going to grow,” he says. “You get very set in your ways at one club so you sort of stop growing, you reach your ceiling. It’s almost like it becomes a bit too easy.

“I’ve got probably six to eight years of good rugby left and I felt I needed a change. Earning the pound is a motivating factor for a lot of South Africans but it doesn’t guarantee you’re going to be happy. You’ve got limited time as a player and you need to do and learn as much as you can and take on bigger challenges.

Brink joining Leicester
(Photo by Carl Fourie/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

“The fact it was the Tigers didn’t make it too hard. [Former Leicester lock and coach] Richard Blaze was actually out in South Africa a few years ago and we had a sit-down and a chat about the culture and everything there. From then I kept tabs on Tigers and watched them play. When the opportunity came up and I got in contact with coach Steve Borthwick, I was keen to come over and start a new challenge.”
Brink is barely into middle-age as a rugby player, but his rise has undoubtedly been checked by the heinous spree of trauma – shoulder, ankle, knee and more besides.

In 2014, he reached the final of the Junior World Championship with South Africa Under-20. The team was captained by Handre Pollard and lost a pulsating final to England by a point. Among the baby Springboks group were Andre Esterhuizen, Jesse Kriel, Warrick Gelant and a squat young hooker called Malcolm Marx. Plenty of that squad are Boks now. Some are world champions.

“That was an unreal experience, really cool,” Brink says. “And we didn’t have an easy road to the final. We beat the All Blacks U20s twice that season.

“It was special putting on the Bok jersey even at junior ranks, and getting to play next to some of those guys. Out of that junior side, I think 12 or 13 went on to make their proper Springbok debuts. I’d like to be one of the guys that also comes through and makes his debut with them.”

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Jon 1 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

34 Go to comments
j
john 3 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

15 Go to comments
A
Adrian 5 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

15 Go to comments
T
Trevor 8 hours ago
Will forgotten Wallabies fit the Joe Schmidt model?

Thanks Brett.. At last a positive article on the potential of Wallaby candidates, great to read. Schmidt’s record as an international rugby coach speaks for itself, I’m somewhat confident he will turn the Wallaby’s fortunes around …. on the field. It will be up to others to steady the ship off the paddock. But is there a flaw in my optimism? We have known all along that Australia has the players to be very competitive with their international rivals. We know that because everyone keeps telling us. So why the poor results? A question that requires a definitive answer before the turn around can occur. Joe Schmidt signed on for 2 years, time to encompass the Lions tour of 2025. By all accounts he puts family first and that’s fair enough, but I would wager that his 2 year contract will be extended if the next 18 months or so shows the statement “Australia has the players” proves to be correct. The new coach does not have a lot of time to meld together an outfit that will be competitive in the Rugby Championship - it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see what happens with Giteau law, the new Wallaby coach has already verbalised that he would to prefer to select from those who play their rugby in Australia. His first test in charge is in July just over 3 months away .. not a long time. I for one wish him well .. heaven knows Australia needs some positive vibes.

21 Go to comments
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