‘You’re there to help, but it’s a massive privilege as well’
As he left Leinster Rugby, Peter Breen, outgoing communications manager with the province, got a text from one of the academy players: ah, the reign of terror is over.
“I’d have been hard enough on them in terms of how they used social media,” Breen laughs.
“Having come from the bad old days and the stereotypes, you didn’t want them to be seen as losing the run of themselves.”
His 10 years driving Leinster’s media image saw some terrific highs and, naturally, a few low points.
“Losing some of the big games were huge lessons. I wasn’t long in the job in 2003 when we lost to Newport Gwent Dragons in front of about a thousand people. Internationals at the World Cup, filthy wet Sunday evening, and I went for a pint that night and thought, ‘it has to get better than this’.”
“But we had great away days then too. People forget Declan Kidney had six wins out of six in the pool stages when he coached Leinster. The best win was probably the Toulouse game, with the Denis Hickie try and so on, but the Millennium Stadium Heineken Cup game was hugely emotional on so many levels.”
Feelings ran high on other occasions, too. When Leinster won the 2012 Heineken Cup Breen had a close-up view of one player’s agony before a ball was kicked.
“I was in the tunnel before the game and I saw Isaac Boss go through a late fitness test, which he failed.
“Seeing him walk off the field, the look on his face that he hadn’t made it... it was like a kick in the stomach. You’re in the background, you’re there to help, but it’s a massive privilege as well.”
As a Dublin football fan the Munster-Leinster clash in Croke Park was another highlight for Breen.
“That was a big one, it was hugely stressful from my point of view. There was a headline in one paper, Target Contepomi, with cross-hairs drawn on a picture of Felipe.
“That gives an idea of the pressures, but as the week wore on I got more confident, from talking to the players. It was a great win, but it wouldn’t have been as enjoyable if we hadn’t had the Lansdowne Road loss in 2006.”
That game looms large in the conversation. Leinster grew “exponentially”, as Breen says, in recent years, but the graph really started to climb when it hit what many Leinster fans dubbed “Black Sunday” — that Heineken Cup semi-final defeat in Lansdowne Road.
“That marked the time when the team decided they wouldn’t be dominated like that again in our own back garden,” says Breen.
“We allowed that to happen, too — Leinster tickets fell into Munster hands, and looking back it’s hard to believe how naive we were in that regard.
“For instance, when we played Harlequins in the Stoop, the game we won 6-5, they gave us a block of tickets for the stand behind one of the goals, rather than splitting the allocation and dispersing opposition supporters around the ground. That’s the kind of thing you learn through experience.
“Certainly it was great to be there through the success, but it meant more when you’d gone through disappointments like that first.”
In his decade the media landscape changed considerably as well.
“I began with a basic remit, promoting Leinster, which didn’t change, but starting off there was just the website, for instance.
“There was no Twitter, no Facebook. You couldn’t buy a Leinster jersey through the website, for instance, so the commercialisation of the business was a huge development.”
Breen had to juggle a lot of balls — his brief covered clubs, referees, women’s rugby, the schools game. He also had to deal with the fourth estate, of course: “You’d encounter a few journalists with a chip on the shoulder, lads walking around with a pus on them. At times you’d like to point out that there are people crying out for interesting jobs — for jobs, full stop — and who didn’t get the break that maybe some journalists got to get into sportswriting.”
Breen, a former journalist himself, was aware of the pressure on reporters to get quotes from players after games, but he says it’s not always as straightforward as pulling a player out of the dressing room.
“You have to be understanding — and smart. Some players might be under outside pressures, family or exam issues, or they might have had a bang in the game.
“The players never refused us, though — they understood what we were trying to do and they also understood that there was no point in having an attitude of ‘I don’t need to do that’.
“If they’d felt like that then that was the attitude they were showing the supporters, the sponsors and so on, but a lot of them were bright enough to realise that without being told. They knew we were trying to broaden the appeal.”
Breen is reasonably happy that Leinster’s identity was broadened out, growing from one part of the capital to the entire province.
“There was a view that Leinster was a monolithic entity making decisions in Dublin 4, but the fact was Leinster played out of Donnybrook, RDS and the Aviva. Those are all based within a mile of Dublin 4: that’s a reality of geography.
“That all became lazy, and was compounded by the fact that early on results didn’t go our way. There’s huge interest in Leinster internationally after the European successes, but within the province it’s been bolstered by brilliant pockets like Tullow, Boyne, Wexford, Greystones and Kilkenny.
“The community rugby network has been huge in the development of Leinster, and we were very keen to promote the coaches doing the work in that context. Without those lads putting balls in young kids’ hands, there wouldn’t be a game.
“All of that helped shed the image of a Dublin 4-oriented team.”
His new job? Communications and fundraising with the DSPCA. Don’t bother with the jokes comparing animals and players. He’s heard them all.
“The DSPCA have big plans and it would have taken a very special job to make me leave Leinster, but after 10 or so years it was probably the right time to go.
“Certainly I got more out of the job than I gave back, if I can put it that way.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
