I took painkillers just to keep playing, admits the Mail’s Eoin Murphy
RITUALS and sport are funny bed fellows. During my playing days various superstitions and customs had to be observed in order to perform on the field.
I had to wear the same pair of lucky underwear (even though one season we only won two games).
I had to be the last person out on the pitch and I always sat in the same seat in the home changing room.
As I got older, however, my protocols opened somewhat to include a number of pharmaceutical additions, most notably pain killers. I played into my late thirties, the last act on a rugby pitch coming in a cup final in which I broke an my ankle while trying to tackle a side-stepping full-back.
Long before that, though, my body had begun to deteriorate. Playing front row in the scrum was punishing. The opposing hookers were getting bigger and stronger each year (gym bunnies in their twenties with necks like bullocks and tempers to match).
Their only objective was to bury me; mine was to survive. It wasn’t long before the neck started to give in. Then the knee. Then the left hip. I had an MRI in my early thirties and was told I had a bulging disc in my neck. The doctor looked at my situation pragmatically and told me I should think about giving up. I countered that he should think about giving me painkillers.
From that moment, I didn’t set foot on a rugby pitch without a cocktail of various prescription and non-prescription medications. Difene became the pill of choice, two of them taken with either a pair of Solpadine or Nurofen plus. These were taken about an hour and a half before the game.
By the end of my playing days I wouldn’t have been able to compete without them. Was the practise common place? I can only speak for myself but it wasn’t a surprise to hear Brian O’Driscoll reveal that he regularly took medication as part of his pre-match routine to ‘give yourself a chance of playing your best game’.
O’Driscoll, though, also had teams of top doctors and physiotherapists monitoring his situation. At the lower levels and grass roots of Irish rugby, you are generally given some freeze spray and left to your own devices.
As a result, you self-medicated. Any visit to the doctor with a twinge or pang of pain was exaggerated in the hope of securing stronger painkillers. It was all the better if these trips happened during the off season so they could be stockpiled in the gear bag and brought out during league time.
Don’t misunderstand, the decision to do this was all mine; no coach ever asked me to. When you pass 30 years of age, though, it is almost impossible to shake the idea that any upcoming game could be your last.
So, rather than complain about a neck or a knee injury, you pop the pills, strap the ankle and suck it up. I never considered it doping because it was completely legal. It never gave me an unfair edge. Like a shot of anti-freeze in an engine it just helped me to get going before the adrenaline took over.
The comedown after the game was the worst. About 15 minutes or so after the final whistle had sounded and the adrenaline wore off, you would sit in the dressing room completely drained. Pain flushed through my neck and knee and any new niggles I might have picked up that day. My skin would itch. The following morning I would struggle to get out of bed. After the birth of my first son it became a real problem. I wasn’t able to pick him up unaided by pain killers until well into the afternoon.
I don’t think I was addicted to them as I never took them unless I was playing rugby but I was heavily reliant. I can recall one day when I ran out of pills completely before a big game. Anxiety took hold and I had to send someone to the chemist for a pack of tablets, convinced that I would not be able to take part without them.
I sat in the dressing room concocting various excuses until one of my buddies arrived in the door with the little white bag of tablets.
It’s four years since I quit the game and in that time I have had two discs removed from my neck and had my spine fused. I have also had major hip surgery and will more than likely need a full replacement before my 50th birthday.
Do I regret not listening to that doctor and quitting earlier? Some days I do. The truth, however, is that I still miss playing rugby to the extent that if you offered me stronger pills that would allow me to compete in one last game tomorrow I would probably take them.
These days, I don’t take painkillers unless I absolutely have to, yet I live with chronic pain every day. I took my fair share of them when I was playing, now I have to pay the price.
“IRFU medical staff operate under guidelines and protocols for the provision of appropriate medicines to players when required as part of a holistic treatment plan.”