Rugby league legend Tawera Nikau is this week’s guest on Sky Sports‘ The Bench Podcast with Jenna Brooks and Jon Wilkin.
The former New Zealand international talks about his incredible personal journey from a small mining town to winning the NRL and playing in Super League.
He also opens up on some deeply personal and tragic events to have taken place in his life – including the death of his wife Letitia, who took her own life in 2001.
Opening up on the tragedy, which happened when he was going through some of his career highs, Nikau tells the story of how then Warrington Wolves head coach Darryl van de Velda helped him through that time.
“You know, I was on top of the world. I’d won a Premiership with Melbourne in 1999. Captained the New Zealand Maori team in the World Cup in 2000, and then came back here to play for Warrington for a couple of years,” Nikau said.
“And then very, very challenging time for me, and with the suicide of my wife, Letitia, during that time I was at Warrington.
“It was very, very challenging when that happened. But I was very fortunate, very lucky. I had a lot of good support from the Warrington team and the players. And in particular, my coach, Darryl van de Velde.
“Darryl was a great guy, and I just really wanted to acknowledge Darrell because he passed away last year up in Brisbane. And I went to his funeral and talked about how he’d helped me, how I’d been through those tough times. And it was really interesting because when I came back after the funeral, I took my wife home, did all the stuff.
“And Darryl rang me and he said ‘oh, listen, T, you just come back when you’re ready’. I said ‘Darrell, I’ll be back next week’. Because I still had, you know, still another about a half a year to go on my contract at Warrington.
“My wife, Letitia, had been my manager all those years. And I said ‘well, I’ll go back and finish off the year and play just to make sure that I finish off my contract ‘because she’d done all those contracts and I was going to retire at the end of that. So when I got back, Darryl turned up on my doorstep.
“He says to me, ‘T, listen, I’ve arranged for you to go and have some counselling’.
“But I said nah, typical male response.
“So I played the rest of the season for about the last six months. But I was a bit of a fitness freak. I trained and I didn’t drink much.
“But when I came back, I started to drink quite heavily. Mainly spirits. And it was a way of dealing with what had happened. So that was my way to not be improving. I’d just get plastered, the gin, vodka after the game.
“That was my way because you go through this whole rollercoaster of emotions: anger, guilt, frustration. Why didn’t I know? What was I thinking? All those sort of things.
“And you were having to keep such a solid face on it for your kids. That was my way of dealing with it. I’d go out drinking, get on benders, wouldn’t sleep for two or three months. And then after about three or four months I’d miss a couple of training sessions, wouldn’t go to recovery.
“Daryll turned up, grabbed me by the collar one day, threw me in the car, took me to the counsellor. And even when I got to the counsellor, I had all these thoughts. I said, they don’t know who I am. They don’t know what’s going on. They don’t know my lifestyle, where I’ve been brought up, all that sort of stuff. So I still had all these excuses.
“So I went into there, sat down. I was in there for about 45 minutes. And when I left the room, I felt this massive weight just lift off my shoulders.
“There was this huge sense of relief because after I’d spoken to the counsellor, it wasn’t about who you are. It wasn’t judgmental.”
If you, or anyone you know, has been affected by any of the topics discussed in this episode you can find help and support at sky.com/viewersupport
