INTERVIEW: Peter Stringer looks back on his rugby career

Peter Stringer was the long-time first-choice scrum-half with Munster and Ireland before falling out of favour and making the decision to reboot his now 18-year professional career in England. He relives it all in his new autobiography, ‘Pulling the Strings’, writes Brendan O’Brien

Q: Let’s start with the obvious so, why write the book and why now?

A: I’d never really thought of it throughout my career. I’ve read the odd sports book, but I wouldn’t be an avid reader or anything like it. I hadn’t led a controversial life either, but with the last few years and having to move away and reinvent myself I felt there might be a story there. I suppose I wanted to enlighten people a bit, that I wasn’t just jumping ship.

Q: The Heineken Cup final win against Biarritz in 2006 stands out as your best moment on a pitch. Why?

A: Because of all the heartbreak years before that. I’d been at Munster since 1998 and that was a long time coming. We’d fallen in so many semi-finals and finals that you would doubt in your head whether or not it would ever happen. Cardiff with the roof closed is my favourite ground and the atmosphere with the Munster support that day was incredible.

Q: And the worst: when Georgia’s Giorgi Shkinin intercepted your pass for a try in the 2007 World Cup.

A: You always go out with a fear of failure driving you on, but that was a different type of fear that day. That moment was just one pass and we still just about won, but I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders, especially when I was taken off and I couldn’t do anything about it. All I could think of were the consequences if we lost. I felt every eye was on me as well as the cameras. I just didn’t want to be there.

Q: You describe the 2007-08 season as your worst after being dropped first by Ireland and then Munster, but would you be as proud of your career since that as you are of everything before it?

A: Absolutely. I’ve been in squad environments where you see guys who are clearly content to just be there and that’s fine because squads are up to 40 people and you need those guys, but I wasn’t at that stage. I wasn’t happy just to be on the periphery at Munster. That wasn’t for me, to be just there and going along for the ride. I felt I had more to offer. Moving away to Saracens on loan was daunting having been in the one place for so long. You are almost institutionalised, but it gave me a taster for something different.

Q: The book shows your need to be in control: you refused to have growth hormone treatment, you refused to drink alcohol and it was you who decided to leave Munster. Where does that trait come from?

A: It’s hard to know. Some of it probably comes from your parents and how you are brought up, but ultimately you either have that or you don’t. I’ve always been comfortable in my own space, being on my own. I never felt the need to pick up a phone and see what my buddies were at every day. That has probably helped me to cope better, by not relying on others. It has helped me be stronger as a person.

Q: It is striking in the book how total your immersion in rugby has been, but why rugby?

A: It was like that from the first day at Cork Con where you were thrown in at the deep end. These days you have tag rugby and things are taken step-by-step, but I was flying into fellas from U7s. There was a guy on my first team who was bigger than me, a big star and he scored loads of tries, but my dad said he didn’t have it. I didn’t understand him then, but I see it now. I was the underdog from the start and I got stuck in.

Q: Can someone like you be too immersed in rugby at times?

A: I compare it to my wife’s sister and husband who work crazy hours, from six in the morning to 10 at night. Compare that to what we do and what we contribute, not just on the pitch but in front of a computer or whatever. I hear some guys complaining ‘aw gee, we have to stay in until three today’ and I think that puts it into perspective. Yes, this is enjoyable, but it is still our job, even if it doesn’t feel like one for me. Plenty of guys talk about how they don’t want anything to do with rugby after, that they only do it because they are good at it. I’m happy with the time I spend away from rugby, but I enjoy watching games as well.

Q: You seem an ideal candidate for the coaching life, fair to say it’s something you’d look at?

A: It is, although I really see myself playing for a few more years. I would love to stay involved in the game beyond that. I watched the Rugby World Cup and I would naturally analyse games as I watch them. One thing you don’t want as a player is to be someone who speaks all the time. You see players doing that just for the sake of it. If I have something to relate than I’ll say it. I like the idea of sitting in the stands looking down on things as they happen on the pitch. It appeals to me.

• Peter Stringer will be signing copies of his autobiography ‘Pulling the Strings” in O’Mahonys, O’Connell Street, Limerick at 12 noon today and in Eason’s, Patrick Street, Cork tomorrow at 2pm