Men for all seasons

Phillip Borell's research into rugby league players tackles cultural stereotypes of masculinity, writes CAITLIN SYKES.

- CAITLIN SYKES

Powerful athletes storming across the field, muscled, tough and fast – it’s the image most of us have of professional rugby league players. Phillip Borell (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Tūwharetoa), however, has seen another side of the picture: of young men vulnerable to homesickness, depression, economic insecurity and even suicide.

In his University of Canterbury PhD thesis, completed last year, Borell shone a light on the experiences of 10 Polynesian professional rugby league players and found that they were significantly different from what we see on TV.

“At least three of my [research] participants spoke about having deep depression when they got over to Australia, because they went over at 16 or 17 years old,” he says.

“One of the guys I spoke to, he’ll rack up 50 NRL [National Rugby League] games this season and is doing really well, but when he got over there, he said it was the toughest thing. You had no idea if you were going to make it. You’re 17, you’re doing everything you can, but in the back of your mind it’s, like, ‘Man, it’d be a lot easier to go home and be with my family.’

“And some of the guys didn’t want to talk to their welfare managers because they didn’t want to show any signs of weakness. Because if the manager goes to the coach and tells him this guy’s depressed or misses his mum, then maybe he won’t get selected.”

Borell did his PhD through the university’s health sciences faculty, where he teaches in the bachelor of sport coaching course. He also lectures at its Aotahi – School of Māori and Indigenous Studies. For the past two years, he’s been voted “Overall Lecturer of the Year” by the university’s students.