Nora Stapleton on the hardest thing in Irish sport: ‘I really struggled with retirement’

Nora Stapleton: I wasn’t devastated to retire, but I wasn’t ready for it either. Picture: INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Former Ireland rugby star Nora Stapleton has a ready nomination for the hardest thing in Irish sport.

Retirement.

“I really struggled with it,” says the Donegal native.

“There’s retirement from international play and retirement from the sport itself, so there were two different things as well.

“I retired after the (2017) World Cup, I knew in the lead-up to that tournament that I’d be retiring. I can’t say why I knew that would be the time — I probably knew it was a time to reprioritise things in my life like my relationship, to give more there rather than disappearing every weekend for training, and being obsessed with my own performance and being better at sport.

“There was an element of exhaustion as well, perhaps, particularly with the World Cup cycle and all that came with that.”

Stapleton’s experience in that final international game was an emotional one — frustration, specifically.

“The night before I retired, I was quite emotional — the whole team would have had an emotional time, but I hadn’t realised I’d be that emotional.

“After the game itself, it was a very frustrating time — I’d been taken off and substituted and rather than being satisfied with what I’d given rugby, I was just upset with it all.

I couldn’t give any interviews afterwards, for instance, and I’m sorry now I didn’t. That’s what the media is there for, to tell a story, but I was thinking about myself and I was embarrassed — I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it together in front of the camera.

“The regrets meant it took me a while before I could celebrate what I’d done because I was annoyed with the final outcome.”

The transition can leave a retiring player with other, more varied challenges.

“One moment you’re Nora Stapleton the rugby player, the next moment you’re nobody — you feel a little embarrassed when people refer to you as a player, you’re thinking ‘do they know I’ve stopped playing?’

“That might sound bigheaded, and I never looked for a big profile, but it was just what came with being in the public eye. I was also working with the IRFU, so I was visiting clubs and saying hello to kids and their parents ... so I felt I was carrying this label of being a rugby player and an international even though I’d stopped.

“Also, I kept playing club rugby and I was winding down, but it was as if people still had the expectation that you’d be able to do what you did as an international.

“That all played on me as well, you’re carrying that level of expectation so you almost feel embarrassed when your pass isn’t quite as good, for instance. Eventually you realise that you’re not playing for Ireland any more, but that can be a strange phase.”

For professional sportspeople it’s different, she points out: “It’s a paid career, so it’s no surprise there’s a lot of work goes into preparing them for retirement. Going from that as your job to nothing is a big change.

“But an elite player in a non-professional sport still has that void when he or she stops. You’re working as normal and it can look as though little has changed, but it has. The emotional roller-coaster — the reason you play sport — has gone.

I only played on at club level for one year and then I stopped, so there were no more team-mates, that camaraderie was gone ... there is a loss there, and I certainly wasn’t prepared for it when I retired. And I struggled to fill it.”

Still, it’s got to be better to pick your own time to stop rather than having a doctor tell you it’s over?

“It’s a funny one, because there could be a sense in that case of someone else making the decision, whereas if you decide to pack it in yourself, you can end up thinking, ‘should I still be playing?’ All things considered, though, it has to be better to make that decision yourself. 

“Age comes into it, too — if you’re 23 or 24, just starting off and then you’re told to stop doing what you’ve dreamed of all your life, that’s devastating. I wasn’t devastated to retire, but I wasn’t ready for it either. Before I retired I had no-one say to me, ‘when you retire make sure you have a couple of things to step into to take up your time’.

“I retired from Ireland in 2017 and played club for a year before going into coaching. I don’t necessarily think that was the best thing either, I mightn’t have been far enough removed from my peers when I coached them — but that’s another area where a lack of conversation about retirement didn’t help.”