BRAVEST MAN IN THE SIX NATIONS
Blinded in one eye, gouged in the other, Italy’s Ian McKinley is only still playing due to pioneering goggles. Now England await
WHEN a metal stud punctured Ian McKinley’s left eyeball on the rugby field eight years ago, his life’s journey switched paths immediately.
Playing for Ireland’s University College Dublin against Lansdowne as a 20-year-old on the books at Leinster, McKinley’s world was permanently altered at the bottom of a ruck.
Only when hearing his full story do you appreciate how utterly extraordinary it will be if the fly-half makes his Six Nations debut for Italy against England on Sunday.
In January 2010, Dublin-born McKinley was grappling for the ball when it happened.
‘That split-second I was on my back, someone came into the ruck and stood on my eye,’ he explains.
‘The stud went into my left eye, pushed it out a little bit and perforated the eyeball. My vision went black straight away.
‘I stood up and started swinging because I thought it was a deliberate act.’
There was no foul play — the foot belonged to one of his team-mates.
A fractured cheekbone was feared; really it was much worse. At Dublin’s Ear & Eye Hospital, a trainee doctor could not diagnose the problem, so the top specialist was summoned.
Four hours later, McKinley came round from a gruesome operation to be told he should not exercise — let alone play rugby — for a year.
Remarkably, after six months he had returned to the game and even signed a new contract with Leinster where Ireland’s current coach Joe Schmidt had just started.
By May 2011 though, with 70 per cent of his vision restored, events took another sinister turn.
Fifteen minutes into Leinster ‘A’ versus Ireland Under-20s, the day after the province had beaten Northampton to lift the European Cup, McKinley’s sight blurred severely.
‘I had just scored a try and went to kick for the posts and thought: “There is something not right here”,’ he continues.
‘I went off and it turned out I had developed a cataract in my eye.’
Due to the complications of his original injury, he now required two more one-and-a-half hour stints under the knife — they just about worked, for now.
Then a frightening development. On a trip to Galway with friends later that year, McKinley suddenly realised he could not distinguish the traffic-light colours.
Doctors confirmed he had detached his retina.
‘They told me the tear had been three times bigger than what they could fix,’ he says.
‘They likened it to a clock. If you go from 12 o’clock till three, they can repair that amount of damage but mine was 12 till eight.
‘They said that unfortunately my vision was gone and they could not do anything.’
Two weeks later, McKinley had retired, aged 21. What makes this tale more harrowing is one of the reasons he felt he had to quit.
Naturally, playing rugby with effectively one eye did not seem achievable — but an uglier point that McKinley is reticent, but feels compelled to mention, is that on his return from the initial injury he was gouged a couple of times in his good eye.
That abhorrent fact meant he never intended to play rugby again, until a conversation with his brother in 2013.
‘He saw I was happy in my job coaching kids and that things were going well but that there was still a degree of regret and what-if,’ says McKinley, who had moved to Italy with his girlfriend — now wife — a year earlier.
Could they find an invention to reignite his career?
Combining the efforts of the National College of Art & Design in Dublin, the game’s governing body World Rugby and a Bologna-based company called Raleri, in 2014 rugby eyewear was patented for his use. A pair of goggles opened new doors.
The astonishing comeback began in Italy’s lowest tier, at Leonorso. He then moved to Viadana, his eyes protected and game re-blossoming.
At Zebre in 2015, he hit the headlines — cruelly denied the chance to face Connacht in his native Ireland, as the unions of Ireland, England and France had not approved the trial of his goggles.
Italy were the trailblazers — now all nations approve the equipment — so he owes a rugby life to his adopted nation.
Last autumn, as a Treviso playmaker and Italian qualified on residency, McKinley made his Test debut in Italy’s win against Fiji. One journey over, another just begun.
‘It was very emotional, singing the national anthem when you have got your whole family there with tears running down their cheeks,’ he reflects.
But how on earth does he play to this level with one eye? The goggles are purely protective, McKinley ruling out the one-per-cent chance some sickening individual tries to gouge him again.
He often cannot see the ball when he kicks with his trusted left foot. Of course he has had to make adaptations but while he relies more on his team-mates, he is not searching for sympathy.
‘There is a huge amount of trust,’ he says. ‘You need the person to the left and the right of you to do their jobs, so you can do yours. I just want to be like anyone else. If you do something well, you are praised. If you do it wrong, you are criticised.’
It seems trite to say that he is an inspiration but perhaps he would allow us to view his achievements as slightly more special than most.
‘The beauty of professional sport is that the journey never seems to come to an end,’ he says. ‘It is good for the soul.’