My heart is held together by a tiny bit of metal
Back playing just months after a stroke, RAF man Josh McNally is set on saving Irish from the drop
JOSH McNALLY’S lucky ‘cufflink’ will be safely tucked away for London Irish’s relegation battle. It will not be found at the bottom of his kitbag, nor will it be left behind at RAF Northolt where he works as a Corporal Weapons Technician.
Instead, the small piece of memory metal is buried deep inside his torso. It has been there since December after the 27- year- old forward suffered a stroke while driving home from a defeat by Saracens.
His wife, Sarah, initially thought that he was drunk as he stumbled through the front door, but it turned out McNally had a hole in his heart.
‘I couldn’t get my words out,’ says McNally, speaking in an office overlooking an old Hurricane. ‘I was all over the place. Sarah called an ambulance straight away but the symptoms had gone inside half an hour. It was only three days later that I found out I’d suffered a minor stroke. The subsequent two weeks were the hardest of my life.’
Employed on a dual contract with London Irish and the RAF, McNally’s career was thrown into doubt as talks were held about early retirement.
It transpired that he suffered a blood clot in his leg during the match at Allianz Park. The clot travelled up towards his heart before leaking through the hole into the deoxygenated chamber.
‘That’s what caused the stroke,’ he says. ‘When a specialist found the hole, it was the best news I’ve ever had. They said it could be treated, so finally I had an answer. I only needed a small operation.
‘They go in through your leg, up the vein and into the heart. This lit-
tle cufflink umbrellas through the hole and you wake up with a oneinch cut in your leg. I spent three months on blood thinners to let my heart heal up and was good to go. The muscle has healed over it now.’
While some of his struggling Exiles team-mates might prefer this season to be over, McNally is cherishing every minute back on the pitch. He starred in the RAF’s inter- services victory over the Army on Wednesday and will start at flanker in today’s must-win Premiership tie against Exeter.
With only three rounds remaining, London Irish now seem doomed. Relegation will leave the club’s future in jeopardy as talk of ring-fencing the Premiership gathers momentum.
‘We don’t want it to end and we don’t want to accept that relegation title,’ says McNally, who comes in at 6ft 7in and just under 20st.
‘If we could keep playing until the end of the year to stay up, then we would. It’s not the greatest of run-ins but hopefully we can catch some of the top-four guys short. Exeter are a beast of a team but our home crowd are getting behind us, so who knows what can happen?
‘We’re on the right path. It was sad that Nick Kennedy left — even the players don’t really know the politics behind that — but Declan Kidney and Les Kiss have come in to steer the ship. They’ve instilled belief. Relegation is an elephant in the room, we know it’s there but all we can do is keep playing. We’re not mathematically down so we’ll keep fighting to the end.’
McNally has one year remaining on his Exiles contract and has the RAF’s blessing to see it through if the club are relegated. He scored a try and was named man of the match on his comeback last month, switching between lock and backrow at the Madjeski Stadium.
‘ I have to pinch myself sometimes,’ he says. ‘I didn’t join the RAF to play rugby. If someone said to me five years ago that I would be playing in the Premiership, I would say “What are you on about?” Only five per cent of the Irish squad haven’t come through academies and that sort of thing. They’ve all been destined to become pro rugby players, so I’m one of the few who came through playing a bit of nati onal r ugby. I t keeps you grounded.’
McNally’s life experience includes four years of full military service, before he was given special dispensation to pursue rugby. As the son of an army officer, he spent part of his childhood living in the Falkland Islands and recently signed a 12-year contract extension with the military.
‘My RAF career’s on hold slightly,‘ he says. ’They’ve been really supportive. When rugby took off, they allowed me to become a bit more stationary, so I work in the bomb dump. I plan on coming back and being stationed around the world like anyone else. Camp Bastion, Kandahar, or wherever.
‘ As a techy, it’s anything from putting missiles and bombs on the planes to servicing rifles. My role would be about getting the planes off the ground and making sure that they don’t fall out of the sky. You sign your name to it. It’s the pilots who get all the glory, really.’
Perhaps London Irish will go on to finish the season in a blaze of glory – although you suspect luck will not save them now.