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Rob Kearney: 'It's a good narrative. It works. Everybody likes it'
By Liam Heagney
Rob Kearney was sitting pretty when RugbyPass caught up with him on Thursday fresh from his Christmas family holiday in South Africa. The southern hemisphere sun had certainly done the 38-year-old some good. “Lovely to get away. Nice. Now I did it with a one-year-old toddler, which was challenging shall I say,” he chuckled.
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The brass tacks regarding this particular chat is his involvement as a studio pundit in this Sunday’s Investec Champions Cup visit by Leinster to La Rochelle. Working with Premier Sports is one of the plates he is happily spinning in his post-playing life, but we’ll leave his dissection on the latest intriguing Stade Marcel-Deflandre match-up until later in this dance.
First things first: how is the body holding up three and a half years after Kearney called it quits as a player? “The body is pretty good, better than I thought. My back was probably the biggest issue I had throughout my career. I had two surgeries on it, countless epidurals, nerve route blocks etc.
“But a normal week now would be I would lift twice in the gym, I do one cardio session and then a game of seven-a-side soccer or padel tennis squeezed in somewhere. There is variety to it. I did one of these HYROX last year which is pretty intense and tough on the body. To be able to get through that is probably a good sign that I’m in a good place.”
Tell us more about the footy. “We play that every Wednesday night. It’s brilliant. Myself, Ferg (McFadden) and Johnny (Sexton) are all on the team and we were three tight friends who came through all the ranks together and finished relatively close together, Johnny obviously staying on a bit longer.
“But it’s a proper league where there is a proper three points on the line every Wednesday night and it matters. There aren’t many other outlets in life where you really care about winning and you get those competitive juices flowing again. I play two positions. Bizarrely they are at both ends of the field, so I play striker and in goals as well. I love playing in goals.”
Kearney quit rugby on his terms in 2021. He had 95 Ireland caps, two British and Irish Lions tours, multiple honours with Leinster and then a career soiree down in Perth at the Western Force. He feels blessed to have moved on into the rugby afterlife without the major dramas some others unfortunately wind up enduring.
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“I have been very lucky and I genuinely say that. The transition for me has been very good. It’s been kind. I haven’t found it as much of a struggle as I expected. Like, it’s a really difficult thing for players to do, to have to transition out of the game.
“I got to play professional rugby for 16, 17 years and had to have a mindset of gratitude that I was one of the lucky ones to live out that dream for so long. Now to give myself a little bit of credit, I always was very mindful of the fact that a transition was coming and I was preparing I guess throughout my whole career when I was still playing.
“That did make it a little bit easier when the time did come. I had more balls in the air, so to speak, that I could play around with. But that year in Perth playing Super Rugby was brilliant for me. It was really nice to get out of Dublin, get out of Leinster, go away somewhere else.
“There was a bit of a soft transition in that and after that season I knew deep down in my heart I was finished playing rugby. My body couldn’t do it, I didn’t particularly want to do it anymore. When you get to a point like that it does make stepping away an awful lot easier when you know it’s what you want to do. It was on my terms and then I took the year off.
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“I’m working part-time now in an investment firm in Dublin, three days a week which is great as it gives me the flexibility to do the other bits and pieces I still have going on. A couple of sponsors, still do some corporate stuff, still do the broadcasting and now I have just joined the World Rugby executive board, so a nice mix and a balance. Lots of things going on.”
As luck has it, the International Rugby Players union representative is back in Australia in a few weeks for his maiden in-person World Rugby executive board meeting, the itinerary tying in with the HSBC SVNS Series in Perth.
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“It was mad when the schedule came through of all the different meetings and I must say I was absolutely delighted. Perth is a great place, a special place in my heart, so it will be really nice to go back. We have had one meeting on Zoom for an hour and a half in November. Now we go to Perth for four days so that will be the board induction day.
“Listen, politically it’s going to be challenging, I know that. I probably have no idea yet as to how political it will be but these are all the challenges and it’s important that that all the board members go in with the same mindset of putting the game first and not their own and their country’s interest. That is always going to be the trade-off.
“I have been elected onto the board on behalf of all the professional rugby players in the world, so there is a pretty big and broad mandate within that. Player safety and player load are going to be massive but we also have to ensure that the game is going to be financially sustainable and it overcomes some of these challenges it is currently in.
“These tier-two nations, we have got to get them to a place where they are enabled to be more competitive, that they are being treated fairly and get compensated fairly. They would be some of the big things early on but I always have to be very cognisant of the fact I’m there as a player representative, so my opinions, my views won’t always matter when I am there as a collective voice on behalf of International Players.”
Kearney is no novice as a union rep. He chaired the Irish Rugby Players Association for years while still lining out with Leinster and Ireland. That sparked the politicking interest that steered him clear of coaching. “It’s an area that I’ve always been pretty passionate about so hopefully the work and the involvement that I have done in the past will help me over the next four years.
“I don’t think coaching was ever a thing. There was an option and a potential to stay on at Western Force when I finished there to do some coaching. It did tickle me a little bit because it meant that I might get to stay on in Perth and live that lifestyle a little bit longer, but I knew ultimately that coaching wasn’t for me so if I did stay on I would just be delaying the inevitable a little bit.”
Nice trip down memory lane ? https://t.co/i8CwYpsyct
— Rob Kearney (@KearneyRob) February 27, 2024
Staying in the game in this way, though, won’t ever replace the buzz of playing. “There are still some big European and international games that I am sitting wishing I was out there; I don’t think it’s something that will ever leave me,” he admitted.
“When you are lucky enough to live a dream, to have a dream as a young kid and a sole purpose of something that you wanted to do and then you get to achieve that, I am always going to look on with envy of the players out there. But there is an acceptance that it is gone forever.”
This embrace has gradually helped his punditry. “I found the first year a little bit challenging because I was so fresh out and new to broadcasting but also had so many relationships within the game. Each year that passes it becomes a little bit easier talking, critiquing the game.
“In terms of homework, you always have to do a bit, watching every week in snippets here and there. I don’t sit down and watch every single game but if you are getting a little bit of rugby every single weekend it keeps the mind active and fresh.”
Kearney’s assessment of old Ireland friend and Munster foe O’Gara will be to the fore when the Premier cameras roll on Sunday. “Have I come across him (since retiring)? Yeah, I have definitely seen him a few times. They haven’t been planned meetings, but I just bumped into him in one place or the other.
“It has been built up as Leinster-Ronan, it always has been but really that is the Irish media that has created that narrative. Listen, it is a good narrative. It works. Everybody likes it, everybody enjoys it.
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“Ronan certainly doesn’t shy away from it. He enjoys that little bit of rivalry, certainly with Leinster. But you have to give him enormous credit in terms of what he has achieved as a coach, it’s been pretty phenomenal. You have to give him a huge amount of credit in terms of making those tough decisions, like first going to Paris and then down to New Zealand and then back to France.
“He is somebody wholly committed to being the best coach he can be and experiencing and getting exposure to rugby in different parts of the world. To win two Champions Cups is not easy and he is someone very much in an upward trajectory as a head coach.”
With Leinster having again comfortably clipped the wings of Munster over the festive period in the URC, the rumblings in the Irish game are that the structure is lopsided, that too many resources allegedly favour Leo Cullen and co at the expense of the other three provinces. Kearney doesn’t buy that chat. When he was a rookie, the boot was firmly on the other foot with Munster dominating and Leinster struggling.
“Listen, these things are always cyclical,” he reckoned. “The best teams don’t always stay the best teams but Leinster over the past four or five years or even longer, 10 years, have been in a particularly good spot. One of the best club teams in the world you’d have to say.
“Munster, conversely on the other side, are going through a really difficult period. You could argue that the gap is still as wide as it has ever been but that is just the nature of sport.
“You just look at (Manchester) United-Liverpool last weekend and you could argue the same thing, the best teams don’t always stay the best teams and you have to work really, really hard to maintain your position at No1. Leinster are massively favoured by the grassroots system and the schools system and the conveyor belt of talent coming through and that just seems to be where Munster are struggling at the moment.”
What an incredible year – thanks to everyone for your support here, there and everywhere! We will keep trying to improve! Now, time for some ? ?? pic.twitter.com/mafhMeFQNq
— Rob Kearney (@KearneyRob) June 24, 2018
Kudos then to bossman Cullen for evolving and dominating in his Leinster role since 2015. “It’s been extraordinary, akin to Ronan. They have both done some incredible things. Leo was always someone very early on you could see he was going to be a coach and he was going to make a very good coach.
“Leo’s real skills are within the organisation, managing it behind the scenes and bringing the young players through, managing the squad and ensuring that the majority of people remain pretty happy at the club. Some of the coaches that he has brought in have shown an element of intellect but also an element of real humility too. To attract talent and work well alongside the likes of Stuart Lancaster and now Jacques Nienaber, that’s a huge plaudit.”
Beaten finalists in the last three Champions Cup deciders, Kearney now believes Leinster have a defining edge with All Black Jordie Barrett on the roster. “It’s a great bit of business. Look at him and RG (Snyman), two world-class players.
“It’s not so much for in-season, it’s when you get to the end of the Champions Cup, semi-final, final and you want to bring some firepower off the bench with 20 minutes to go – it just means you have more options. Now I’m not saying they are going to be the two guys coming off the bench, they might well both be starting.
“But it just adds a little bit more firepower and where Leinster came short in the last few years is they haven’t necessarily had that firepower to come off the bench in the big games.”
- Rob Kearney will be part of the commentary team for La Rochelle vs Leinster this Sunday live on Premier Sports 1 from 3pm (UK and Ireland).
- Rugby on another level: Premier Sports is the new home for Investec Champions Cup across the UK and Ireland with 80 live games this season across both EPCR tournaments including the knockout stages and finals. Visit www.premiersports.tv to sign-up.
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Imagine playing football with JS. Gahd.