Opinion: Bongi Mbonambi’s Sharks departure is a win for everyone including the Springboks and Rassie
Bongi Mbonambi and an inset of Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus.
It’s confirmed: Bongi Mbonambi is a Stormer again after his relationship with the Sharks crumbled.
His return to Cape Town is quite simply a victory for everyone directly and indirectly involved in the situation.
A win for the Sharks
Let’s start with the team he is leaving. For years now, Sharks fans have bemoaned the underperformance of a team jampacked with superstars and double Rugby World Cup winners, with Mbonambi being one of them.
John Plumtree was eventually ushered out with JP Pietersen, who was being mentored by the New Zealander to take on the top job, taking over after the club conducted a high-performance review of its structures, employing the services of the highly regarded Alan Zondagh to do so.
One of Zondagh’s main takeaways from the review was the culture at the club, which the Sharks have addressed by creating a Player Affairs & Culture department and have recruited the services of All Blacks legend Ma’a Nonu to offer his insight too. Last August, Rapport reported that one of Zondagh’s findings was that senior Springboks were being treated differently from the other senior Sharks players, with an insider telling the publication that Boks were able to “get away with murder”.
In order for the Sharks to build a happy and successful environment at the club, they felt that this needed to be addressed, and Mbonambi has become a victim of that – though he is certainly not innocent. It also has to be led by the head coach, something that CEO Shaun Bryans had hinted Pietersen was already doing when he took over in the interim last year.
“JP has brought a renewed focus on clarity, accountability and strong alignment within the playing group,” Bryans said in a club statement announcing the changes.
While the Sharks’ statement confirming Mbonambi’s departure said that the parties reached ‘amicable terms‘, the mutual agreement suggests that both agreed that the relationship had broken down beyond repair. Rapport also revealed that Mbonambi ignoring Pietersen’s instructions on the team-bonding camp was not his first transgression, as he has had previous disciplinary records, along with Trevor Nyakane, which include failing to attend physiotherapy and commercial obligations.
Ultimately, if the Sharks are to successfully create a culture of accountability, then Mbonambi’s actions couldn’t be swept under the rug. It sets a bad precedent that if you have high enough standing, you can ‘get away with murder’. It also doesn’t serve the Sharks well at all to keep a double World Cup-winning Springbok, who comes with a hefty salary, on the books and training outside of the senior squad. Mbonambi couldn’t have been happy; neither could the board nor Pietersen.
Looking purely at the rugby side of it all, the Sharks are losing a world-class operator. At 35, Mbonambi isn’t the ball-carrying threat that he used to be and doesn’t get through the same kind of work around the park either, but his set-pieces remain a super-strength. His lineout darts are still of international standard, and he is still hailed as one of the best scrummaging hookers in South Africa.
So sure, the Sharks are losing those qualities but have already begun life without Bongi, who has been overlooked all season, and quite frankly, they have the depth to make it work.
The Durbanites don’t have a hooker of international quality to fill his void, but they do have two experienced number twos who have time and time again performed well at United Rugby Championship level: Eduan Swart and Fez Mbatha.
Bubbling under, they have three bright young prospects in the position in South Africa in the form of Esethu Mnebelele, Liam Van Wyk, and Ethan Bester. Mnebelele skippered the Junior Boks in Riley Norton’s absence earlier this year and has been deployed as cover for Swart so far this season. Van Wyk was the deputy under Mnebelele for Kevin Foote’s team whilst Bester is also a former Junior Bok and is the eldest of the trio at 22.
In the quintet, the Sharks are well covered in the position, and while they could use the funds freed up by Mbonambi’s departure to recruit a marquee player, it isn’t necessary and would be a luxury addition.
A win for the Stormers
One man’s loss is another’s gain, and that’s certainly the case for Stormers director of rugby John Dobson, whose hooker stocks have been battered over the past fortnight or so.
The club’s injury list isn’t excessively long but all of the early season setbacks have seemingly occurred in the same position, and it just so happens to be the same one that Mbonambi plays.
André-Hugo Venter, Deon Fourie, Lukhanyo Vokozela, Almero Keizer and Luca Bakkes all injured while the hooking stocks were further depleted by the suspension of JJ Kotzé. This resulted in one-cap Springbok Scarra Ntubeni answering an SOS from the club, coming out of retirement to provide injury cover and opening up the dialogue between Dosbon and Mbonambi over the latter’s return to his old stomping ground.
“It’s not a long-term contract. He’s really coming in as injury cover,” the Stormers boss said on signing the Bok hooker on a one-year deal.
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While the Sharks weren’t pleased with Mbonambi’s off-field antics, Dobson said that all of his interactions with the hooker have been positive.
“I worked with Bongi for quite a few years at the Stormers. There were high levels of trust and professionalism. I worked with him in the Baa-Baas as well. I can’t speak to what happened at the Sharks, but our experience with Bongi has been extremely positive.”
It’s clear that the Stormers need a hooker, and Mbonambi eases that crisis. He is a short-term fix for a short-term problem.
A win for Bongi Mbonambi
Another short-term fix, but for a longer-term problem, is that Mbonambi will get some much-needed game time at the Stormers. The veteran front-rower hasn’t played a single minute for the Sharks this season after working his way back from an injury he sustained in January.
Mbonambi still has ambitions to represent South Africa at next year’s Rugby World Cup, but he simply cannot be selected if he isn’t playing, especially considering the fact that he fell down the pecking order with the national team last year. He played five Tests for the Springboks in 2025 and was overlooked for the end-of-year tour until the final game against Wales, when Rassie Erasmus needed cover in the position in a Test match outside of World Rugby’s official international window.
He was unavailable through injury for the Tests this year, but now that he is fit again, he needs minutes on the park to force his way back into the conversation. Furthermore, considering his age, there was a real threat that if his contract at the Sharks was terminated, he could be forced into retirement. Sure, there would have been clubs that would be interested in his services, but that may not have fitted in with his personal and family requirements.
This year-long stint at the Stormers might not only boost his chances of getting back into the mix with the Springboks but also his ambitions post the 2026/27 season, if he hopes to extend his career.
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A win for the Springboks
As much as the Springboks’ depth is praised and looked upon with envious eyes, hooker remains a problem for Erasmus. The head coach has struggled to find a successor for Mbonambi, which was always going to be a tall ask, with Malcolm Marx’s playing time going through the roof last year and this year.
Johan Grobbelaar has been given a few shots at filling the void the double World Cup winner’s absence has created, while Marnus van der Merwe and Andre-Hugo Venter have got look-ins, but none have really convinced Erasmus and his staff. Instead, they relied on Deon Fourie to cover for Marx in the front row during Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series and are looking to Jan-Hendrik Wessels in November, with the latter losing his utility forward tag for the window, by the looks of it, with a sole focus on hooker.
Mbonambi and Marx were the go-to options for the Springboks since 2018 and while it might be a stretch for the latter to feature at another World Cup, Erasmus is clearly isn’t overly convinced by the depth of the player pool in the position and could fall back on the player he has trusted time and time again to get the job done. But for that to happen, he needs to be playing, and he wasn’t doing that in Durban.
READ MORE: Springboks bolter to break Frans Steyn’s 20-year-old record after shock Rassie Erasmus call-up
