Buckley right at home in afterlife

Most players view the approach of retirement with dread.

Brian O’Driscoll memorably described it as the “afterlife” and there are all manner of support services to help old rugby pros transition onto Civvy Street.

Tony Buckley? Doing just fine, thank you very much.

“Yeah, loving it,” he said yesterday of life back home in Newmarket. “I was back into work about a week after I came home. I was working in an oil refinery for six weeks. So, that was a bit rough! Long hours.

“I was leaving home about six, starting at eight and not home till 10 at night. Five or six days a week — depending on the legality of the working hours! Straight back into it. Loved it. Don’t mind it at all. Tired, but I love it.”

He made the call late last season. He had expressions of interest from clubs in London and Paris after three seasons with Sale Sharks, and 10 years into a career that also embraced Connacht and Munster, but none could match the lure of home.

“Living in the country. No neighbours. Green fields. Silence. It’s great,” he said at the launch of the Ulster Bank Leagues at Lansdowne Road where he earned a fair few of his 25 international caps.

“No regrets about calling time on it either. I could have played another two years, but I’m in bad enough shape as it is. The kids are always asking why I am walking funny and why I can’t get up.”

Not that he is quite done yet.

Last June, he announced his intention to lace up his boots with Kanturk RFC for another year or two: the club that first cajoled him onto the rugby path as a 15-year-old and who begin life as a senior club in Division 2B this weekend.

His fitness is “shocking”, not having run since May thanks to an inflamed Achilles tendon that required an injection last week, but he intends to take part in his first training session tonight and might be good for a few minutes away to Navan.

He is doing a spot of coaching as well, but this is his way of saying goodbye to his playing career on his own terms. Of earning closure and of giving something back because, while the money he earned from the game was nice, it wasn’t his compass.

He played because he loved to and he admitted that the grá for rugby was lost towards the end when illnesses and injury and Sale’s yo-yo fortunes made the game a grind. Kanturk’s team has an average age of 23 and optimism is unlimited right now.

The club almost went tamely into the dark night of minor rugby a few years back, but there is a vibrancy about the place now as it breaches senior status and it is attracting youngsters from a rippling pool of GAA strongholds.

Almost 200 kids under the age of 10 have been known to frequent the grounds at the weekends and Kanturk are now supplying a steady stream of players to Munster’s underage sides. Buckley is just delighted to be doing his part.

“I didn’t want to be bitter in 20 years’ time and looking back,” he said. “I have some good memories and maybe we will go up with Kanturk or maybe we will survive but who knows? The target for the season is survival.”

He didn’t catch Munster’s Pro12 opener last Friday as he was taking in Kanturk’s last pre-season outing, a 27-24 defeat of UCC, but his affection for his native province and old club remains unaffected by his exit in 2011.

He is tickled pink to see old muckers Anthony Foley, Mick O’Driscoll and Jerry Flannery leading the Red Army and two strands of his past will entangle this season when Munster meet Sale in the Champions Cup.

A broken leg soured his third semester at Sale and he saw his time there tail off with just eight outings in his last campaign.

It was a “low point” on which to finish, but Kanturk will curb the edges of any unwanted emotions for now and the visit of Sale to Limerick in January will offer another opportunity to tie up any loose strands.

“I’ll be in the stand for that,” he said. With a smile.