ONE YEAR ON, SAM’S GOT NO REGRETS
LITTLE more than a year ago, on a Monday evening in mid-July, Sam Warburton sat down with his mobile phone and made a call. A difficult call.
He called his Wales coach and mentor, Warren Gatland. He called time on his career.
A year on, while Gatland was putting his current charges through physical and mental hell high in the Swiss mountains, Warburton spent a Monday afternoon in July standing outside a bread van with his face plastered over it at the Royal Welsh Show in Llanelwedd.
“Life’s certainly different, but I’m enjoying it,” he says.
The 30-year-old isn’t one for regrets. A year on from retiring as one of Welsh rugby’s greatest servants, there’s not been a great deal of looking back for Warburton. That was never going to be the case.
It’s little surprise then that the first year of having the boots permanently hung up on the pegs has flown by.
“It’s gone super quick,” he says. “Obviously I retired a year ago, but it’s
been two years since I last played.
“In many ways, I still feel like a player. I still train. I still eat healthily.
“But, I feel bad saying it, I’m really enjoying life at the minute. I’m enjoying being a fan now and watching rugby more closely. It’s been really good so far.”
Warburton doesn’t look back at that decision to quit and wonder what if. The months prior to his retirement were hard, a genuine battle between believing he could play again and then finally realising he couldn’t.
If the actual decision itself brought a shred of relief, again Warburton is a man who knows his own mind, it was counter-balanced by the fact that this was now it for Sam Warburton, the rugby player.
“Starting off it was difficult,” he explains. “The last six months of that year I was adamant I was coming back.
“Then within two days, it spiralled downhill to the point where I wanted to retire. It was a mixture of emotions. I went through everything.
“Some people might have heard me speak and said ‘he told me he was finishing’ and others might have said I was coming back. I genuinely was.
“It was a difficult 12 months emotionally.”
Yet, despite that initial storm of emotions, Warburton was fortunate to never truly feel lost once rugby was taken away from him as many others do.
Perhaps that’s because, despite the injury, Warburton made the call himself to quit for reasons that far outweigh the daily aches and pains of rugby.
Either way, this first year of his new life hasn’t been spent searching for something in vain.
“I never had that really,” he explains. “I never felt lost. I’m lucky I have a very close family network.
“I didn’t know it was coming, but I was prepared for the worst. I wasn’t ready, but I was prepared.
If anything, people were searching for Warburton and knocking on his door, rather than the other way around.
“I was very lucky when I finished that I had people knocking on the door asking me to do things,” he adds.
“I could fall into work straight away and keep myself busy. Life has been really busy, which I think is the biggest challenge when you finish. It’s kept me distracted in a good way.
“I feel bad saying this because not every retired player gets this opportunity, but I found myself saying no to things more than yes.
“It was nice that a lot of opportunities arose so I could pick what I enjoyed and pursue that. I feel for a retired player, I was very fortunate.
“It’s worked out well.”
And when it comes to opportunities he wants to pursue, there seems to be a great deal that Warburton enjoys.
He currently does punditry for BBC and BT Sport, as well as writing for the
Times. He is an ambassador for the Welsh Rugby Union and is keen to get more involved with his home region, Cardiff Blues.
“Then there’s the public speaking and leadership roles,” continues Warburton. “Q&As, dinners, sponsorship, charity work, property interests – I run a company that buys and lets portfolios, so I’m on emails every day.
“There’s loads going on, but it’s a nice busy. That’s why I’ve been quite lucky. It sounds like a lot, but they are all just little bits.
“It’s not like one is a huge commitment. There’s lots of little bits flying around. I manage to still enjoy the sport, still want to be an influencer and help the game of rugby grow.”
Not just rugby, but sport in Wales. And fitness and well-being, too. Warburton wants to be a role model for it all.
And the former Cardiff Blues flanker, having been given the freedom to pick and choose what he does next, is more than aware of putting his name to