About a week ago, Ange Capuozzo gave a very strong testimony in the press about the very difficult period he went through after the World Cup. The Italy international was not afraid to admit that he had suffered from depression and explained how it had affected his life. “Nothing gave me any emotion anymore. Even the positive no longer made me happy. I no longer enjoyed life”he indicated.
Fortunately, Ange Capuozzo escaped and that was also the aim of his testimony: if depression strikes without necessarily warning, “the exit door exists”. And at a press conference on Thursday, Blair Kinghorn, another Stade Toulousain international, responded to his comrade’s comments, as we can read in La Dépêche.
He who is also used to dealing with very heavy schedules, shared between the club and the selection, completely understands to what extent mental health can quickly become a problematic subject to manage, and to what extent the environment outside Rugby has a crucial role to play.
It’s difficult. Week after week, you have to be up to the task. It’s a long season, especially in the Top 14. It doesn’t stop, it continues. So it can be mentally difficult.
I think that with a good team, we should be able to break away from rugby. When I come home, I have my family around me, my friends too. It helps, but the season is long. Rugby can be mentally difficult, that’s for sure.
Stade Toulousain in prevention
If the external environment is important, the club is no less important. Players must be supported in their professional environment to be able to confide when their mental health seems fragile. At Stade Toulousain, mechanisms exist and they were explained by David Mêlé, also present at the press conference. The coach also expects this subject to be discussed more easily at all levels of rugby, not just in the professional world. It’s progressing slowly, “tongues are beginning to loosen” he says, but this must continue.
It’s something that we really try to put in place to anticipate, rather than treating it a little later. We do prevention. We really try to listen, to hire the right people to prevent all this (…) It’s important that this becomes a subject in rugby in general, not just in the Top 14.
To summarize
About a week ago, Ange Capuozzo gave a very strong testimony in the press about the depression he experienced after the World Cup. Blair Kinghorn, another Stade Toulousain international, reacted to his teammate’s strong words, also maintaining that it can be very complicated for players over the seasons.
