Bernard Jackman joined us on Wednesday Night Rugby this evening, as rugby begins to emerge from lockdown and competition begins to become more feasible.

The former Ireland rugby international, and erstwhile coach of Grenoble and Dragons, spoke to us about why he left coaching and the lessons he learned.

"It started before it ended. I never thought that I would be an international sportsperson, when I left school I studied international marketing and Japanese. When I retired from playing, I went back and did a Master's at UCD.

"I was always prepared to test myself in another industry, that is not to say that I didn't love what I did - rugby has been incredibly good to me and my family. I still love the punditry, going to games and doing the coaching.

"It is about seeing if I can be successful in something else. Up to now, it is going OK, but there are a huge amount of opportunities outside of pro coaching."

Jackman spoke of being on a call at the beginning of lockdown where he was asked to tutor others on going from professional sport into the 'real' world.

"What I found was the coaches were preoccupied with the players not having the tools for transition [...] but my point to the group was that, as coaches, you have a skillset.

"But there are coaches that fear the day that they get sacked because they don't understand that the skills are transferrable.

"I'm enjoying testing whether they are or not, learning a new industry, and trying to prove that I can do it. It has been brilliant."

Bernard Jackman

This was a decision that was influenced, in part, by time and timing; when moving at the age of 54 rather than 44 could have been all the more fraught.

"I didn't fancy going into a company at 51 or 52 and starting at the same level as graduates; you don't have enough time to get the experience under your belt when you have a career of 13 years."

As to whether that decision was hard, Jackman was circumspect.

"You can have that dream [of success] in another area of life as well; it is a case of transferring that passion into another area.

"For me, if I can achieve what I want to achieve in the business world, and I retire and look back saying that I didn't too badly as a player, coached in the Pro 14, and then achieved what I wanted to achieve in the corporate world - then, how bad?"

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