Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
As a young man as these guys, I how careers not know how
JOE PUT ME IN BLACK MOOD
BEFORE the All Blacks game in Chicago in 2016 I was riven with doubts. For all sorts of reasons I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else.
I knew Joe was eyeing me. We were putting on the match jerseys and getting ready to go for the anthems.
There was just time for Joe to give me the ‘big players in big games’ line.
Instead, he quietly says to me, “We need a big game from you today, Rob. You need a big game for you.”
Kick-off is maybe four minutes away, tops, and I’m thinking, F*** you Joe. Why would you just say that to me now? You know the way my head is. What the hell? We’re going out here where we may well get bloody well pumped, Joe, and you’re basically telling me that you’ve put your ass on the line for me.
You’ve just reaffirmed what doubts I’ve been feeling.
You’ve just told me that I’m in by the skin of my teeth.
I had to turn it around quickly in my own head.
In the tunnel I was thinking, screw him. If this is my last game for Ireland, I’m just going for it. I don’t f***ing care anymore.
I knew I wasn’t fully match fit and the whole thing wasn’t looking too promising – and now
Joe was pressuring me like this.
I’d had a knee injury for weeks but this was a new day. I hadn’t strapped the knee that I had strapped during the previous four weeks of playing or training. It felt a little better.
I’d decided that, literally and metaphorically, I was going without the strapping.
A big factor had been the public bandwagoning, the lobbying for a change at full-back. I hadn’t been playing my best rugby but that general acceptance that you are finished can really get to you.
I played well, out of anger and out of not caring anymore. There was a point when I felt that this was going to be a good day and, when the game was over, I remember retreating into that selfish corner.
That’s me back. Point proved.
I’ve bought myself another 18 months in the jersey.
On the field afterwards, I did an interview with US TV. When it finished and I turned away,
Joe was there beside me with that boyish little grin (right).
“I’ll have to say that to you more often, Rob.”
Buttons pushed again.
FIRST CAP: v Argentina, June 2, 2007, lost 0-16
LAST CAP: v New Zealand, October 19, 2019, lost 46-14
TOTAL CAPS: 95
TOTAL POINTS: 82 – 16 tries, 1 conversion
IRELAND HONOURS: Six Nations winner 2009 (Grand Slam), 2014, 2015, 2018 (Grand Slam)