This weekend sees the knockout stages of the rugby Investec Champions Cup with the quarter finals matches. Maybe 15-20 years ago I would be chomping at the bit wishing to be out on the field playing, but these days there is no such thought.
A few weeks ago whilst in Durban I bumped into an old team mate and you can physically see he is an ex rugby player. Besides having the cauliflower ears he has a distinctive limp from the accumulation of taking big hits over the years. Back when I was playing we were in between the amateur stage and the incoming professional era of the sport of rugby. This makes little difference as you can spot the ex rugby players from a mile off as most have some type of physical ailment when you hit my age.
This meant you worked during the day and trained with the team in the evenings and had matches at the weekends with the odd match during mid week. There were no real breaks to recover from injury with the thought that these could wait for the off season. The squads were not big enough to rotate players so you just played unless you had something serious like a broken bone. I had broken ribs as the scar tissue tells me this today and I had no idea this even happened. I have always been one to avoid medication including pain killers as I would rather feel the pain knowing I am not doing more damage.
In those days work was more relaxed with employees playing high end sport and when we had extra training sessions during the day which did happen they were more than happy to let me continue. The company I was working for was a cigarette company and we were sponsors of the Super 12 rugby tournament. Having my advertised liveried vehicle at these first division club matches along with myself playing was seen as a bonus. On Fridays I was allowed off only working a half day and this was the company insisting and I never even asked.
Monday mornings when I arrived at the office the weekend matches were obvious as it would be black eyes, stitches and always a stiff limp. The day after was a nightmare and thankfully was a day off being a Sunday because just walking around or should I say hobbling around was a real struggle. Every Sunday or following day from a match was exactly the same, but did improve over the week only to be done again and again.
This was the difference between semi professional rugby and professional rugby as we never really had rehabilitation days or recovery days like they do now. The ice baths were only introduced in my last full season of playing and they actually helped so much. We never had teams of doctors or masseuses like they have now and we just struggled on sorting our own needs out.
Seeing m y team mate suffering from all the aches and niggles shows how lucky I was as even though my body has been battered over the years I am not limping. Maybe if I had played another 5 or 6 years then I would have not been so lucky. Work in the UK even though it was the same company would never allow me to take days off for sport even though I was asked it I was going to continue playing. One senior manager wanted me to move to his area so I could play for his rugby club that he supported, but I knew it would be impossible to keep the fulfil demands of work and sport and I may as well have turned professional.
When you watch the players on television looking physically strong and fit tomorrow will show a totally different picture with the players struggling to move around. Knowing that these players are playing at these standards with so many big hits they will also suffer at some point in the future. The body will break down at some point and when you are young and full of adrenalin you do not realise the damage you are doing. The sheer volume of the games these players are playing these days is most likely double what we played back in the day.