Phenomenal, draining and dramatic..i’m only coming down now
Sports presenter has hopes Irish can lift Rugby World Cup crown
disappointed when fellow RTE presenter Joanne Cantwell landed The Sunday Game gig in 2017 when Michael Lyster retired. This prompted Jacqui, who has worked at RTE for 17 years, to contemplate quitting. She said: “When you feel like you’ve reached a ceiling, you’re thinking there’s still time to do something else. The reality is you have to go through that disappointment and sit with it in your head. “I think it was more like ‘I’m p***ed off I didn’t get it’, and ‘Where am I going?’”
But biding her time at RTE has paid off.
Jacqui added: “I really do have to pinch myself now.
“I’ve got to present the Six Nations, the Rugby World Cup, the Olympic Games plus I’ve done European Championships and The Sunday Game.
“I’ve won the lotto in a way. Not everybody gets to live out their dreams.”
Weighing in on the RTE pay scandal, she admitted there’s been a weird atmosphere at Montrose.
She said: “It’s been a weird year. I have a lot of faith in Kevin Bakhurst. I worked under him in the newsroom when he was in there previously. He’s a good man and has the best interests of RTE at heart. There’s still a lot of work to be done to try to win back the trust of not just the public but the people inside the building.”
TRAGICALLY
Jacqui lost her brother Sean, who tragically died in 2011 aged 25, when his jeep spun out of control in torrential rain in Kinsale, Co Cork.
She added: “Sometimes you get reminders of him, particularly with kids and stuff, I think that’s the hardest part of it, he never got to meet his nieces and nephews.
“It can be very hard to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and living life. But the one thing that my family is, we’re very good at just saying OK, perspective is everything.
“He would hate for us to be sitting around and that’s why we don’t and that’s a really positive thing.” Away from sports commentary it helps that hubby Shane of 11 years, whom she met at college in Limerick, is also sports mad.
Jacqui, who is mum to Luke, nine, and six-year-old Lily, said: “There’s probably a shared love of it all, it makes it very simple.”
You’re likely to find her on the sidelines at her kids’ camogie, soccer and rugby matches before she goes on air.
She added: “In the mornings before I go to work I’m also on the sidelines at all these games as a coach. I really enjoy that side of it.
“There’s no point in being involved at the level of what I’m doing on the TV if you’re not involved at the grassroots as well, because really, that’s where the craic is.”