Springboks prop Thomas du Toit has explained the reason why he spurned a money-spinning offer from Bordeaux in favour of a return to the Sharks, the Durban-based club where he made his first-team breakthrough.
The two-time Rugby World Cup winner made his first PREM Rugby appearance of the 2025/26 season when coming off the Bath bench during the champions’ 38-17 win over Gloucester on Saturday.
That appearance came seven days after the 30-year-old concluded his latest block of international duty with South Africa as a back-to-back Rugby Championship title winner when the Springboks picked off Argentina at Twickenham.
That win was four months after he helped Bath to win the Premiership at the same London stadium when they faced Leicester in the final.
“Over and above everything, it is a family decision…”
It was after the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France that Du Toit first arrived at Bath, but he won’t be extending his stay in England when his third season comes to an end in June 2026.
Johann van Graan had hoped to keep the front-rower at Bath. But so determined was Du Toit to return home to South Africa that not only did he turn down an extension at The Rec, he also said no to a massive offer to join Bordeaux, the 2024/25 Champions Cup champions.
Appearing on the latest edition of Maul Or Nothing, the Springboks prop explained that family was the reason behind the decision to take up a four-year deal back in Durban with the Sharks rather than move across the Channel to the French Top 14.
“Listen, you guys are 100 per cent right, there was a moment where we thought, ‘Do you know what, we are just going to do it, we are going to bite the bullet, go for it 100 per cent, we are not going to even question it – we are just going to do it’. But we knew what the right decision was.
“We did turn down the offer from Bordeaux. It was a very good offer, it was a very fair offer, and we were extremely grateful for it. I had the conversation with Yannick (Bru), but we were looking more to the future with family and getting them settled. Our whole life is in South Africa.
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“We are going to miss this place [Bath] unbelievably much, but for us it is important to take every day step by step and make the most of our time we have got here.
“I am looking forward so much to this season with Bath. I am going to give everything like in the last couple of years. Very grateful for the support I have had from the guys and from Johann, and it’s definitely something I am going to take with me back home.
“But over and above everything, it is a family decision, one that I made for the best of my family. That’s basically the long and short of it.”
Du Toit was a starter for the Springboks in five of their six recent Rugby Championship matches, and he spoke glowingly about how head coach Rassie Erasmus emotionally set up the team to succeed.
Reflecting on the title-clinching Round Six clash with Argentina in London, the tighthead explained: “Rassie has got a unique ability to get the guys up for every single game and make us understand the importance of the next one.
“I always tell people we are trying to put every match into its own block, every week we put it into its own block, and for that week we have got the emotional side that comes with it. You don’t look too far into the future, and you also don’t look too far backwards with the first couple of games that we lost.
“So Rassie has got this unique ability to get the guys up emotionally for every week. I wouldn’t say it is a theme because we don’t have weekly themes. But for us, we find it important to play as well as we can to win these big things so that we can put another arrow in our quiver, another badge on your belt for this team.
“The thing that stood out for me this time was with the uncertainty of the Rugby Championship for the next couple of years and when we are going to play this again, this was the last time that this group looked so similar in the Rugby Championship.
“So we just built on that, which was quite special, and we did it for each other. I found it a very special game and everyone enjoyed it.”