It's all work and play

ISN'T it ironic? Here he is, the rebel of just a few years ago, who argued cogently for a more professional Irish rugby set-up, and now his work commitments make "him one of the dinosaurs of the modern era.

Increasingly, Jim Staples is struggling to marry rugby and work. Up at 5.15, maybe 5.30, a run through the shower, tea cup flying back through the door, the train at 5.50, swing open the office door at 6.45.

Check up on events overnight, the state of the money markets in Japan and the United States, then convene with economists and strategists to assess the dollar, the French franc and the deutschmark and he's really off.

Come 5.0, and he's on that lift to the bottom floor and a train to be in Harlequins for 5.45 Monday to Wednesday. Staples scarcely has time for this international duty, and may not be able to continue playing next year. However, he is embarrassed by any sympathy for his plight.

"Sometimes it looks like Jim the Martyr when I've read about it myself. That certainly isn't the case. I love playing rugby and I also have a job I very much enjoy. On that basis I'm getting the best of two worlds. I'm not getting the rough end.

"The game has gone professional. There's an opportunity for some players where you don't have to work. A lot of players have decided to use that. I'm in a sense, cheating. I've decided I'm not going to do that.

"I'm sure in a year's time, maybe two years, who knows, the likes of myself won't be around. That isn't sad. That's natural. That's the natural evolution of the game. I've got a choice. I could be a pro if I wanted to.

Last Friday I was so happy; I enjoyed Friday because I was going home and doing nothing That's pretty sad," he says with a self-deprecating chuckle. "I'm actually quite keen not to make myself out to be the saddest man in the world here."

Given the choice, he takes the phlegmatic view - rugby would probably have to come second at 31. Which is not to say he's actively contemplating retirement.

"That's not actually what I've said. What I've said is that, I would love to play for Harlequins next season. However, Harlequins are in the situation where virtually the entire squad are full-time. If I. were someone like Keith Wood, training from 12.0 to 2.0 during the day, and then having to wait until 7.30 at the gym to stroll over the city to do a team session, I'd be pretty upset about it. There's no need for their day to be that long."

As things stand, only Rory Jenkins and Staples are not full-time, and Jenkins, a solicitor, is considering his options for next season. This could, as Staples puts it, "make it less feasible to have the entire squad hanging on for six hours for one guy to join the session. So there is a possibility that I can't play at Harlequins. And if I can't play at Harlequins, I'm not too sure what my plans are."

From rebel to dinosaur then? "It's really weird because when you think, three, four years ago, I was considered a bit of a rebel because of my views on professionalism. It's fairly ironic. You didn't need to be a genius to see the way the game was going and I also fully understand the ramifications for myself. In many ways being 31 has given me a get-out clause and in many ways I'd like to say if I was 27 I would do it but..."

"Twenty-one?"

"Twenty-one? Yes, for a while. I would have done it for a while. But there's a possibility that I'd get bored as well. They have an awful lot of time on their hands. It's a question of what you do with your spare time. I don't want to be sitting around all day watching MTV.

"The fact that I'm not making a final decision means I'm thoroughly enjoying playing for Quins and for Ireland. I enjoy Brian's (Brian Ashton's) view of the game and the way he likes it to be played."

Such problems, marrying work and rugby, appeared eminently more manageable at the start of the season when he was excluded from the Irish squad. This, after all was the Irish captain of less than 12 months previously.

He received plenty of phone calls, the most memorable of which was from his coach at Harlequins, Dick Best. "Just checking Jim, you're not dead, are you?

"I got a bit cool at the start of the season about not being in the squad. It's been many years since I have been on the squad at the start of the season so it wasn't something that fazed me greatly. I'm not trying to distance myself from selectors but there ain't a great deal you can do about it."

For Staples it's a question of control and controllables. "I'm not in that room when the team is being picked. I don't go out playing for Quins with the idea of proving people wrong. If people want to make a decision, that's for them to make, and I don't mean to be disrespectful."

"I was a bit surprised to be left out of the squad (at the start of the season). I didn't need that phone call from Dick Best but I saw the funny side of it. But, you shrug your shoulders and get on with it."

Sadly, like" many of our attacking full backs and wingers over the decades, we haven't regularly seen the best of Staples since he burst on to the international scene in 1991 - a point he readily accepts. With Irish fans now more exposed to English club rugby, he is persistently asked "why don't you play for Ireland like you do for Harlequins?"

Different teams, different styles, he says - which is not a critique of the Irish ways. "If I was a selector of certain teams I would pick myself at full back but there are other teams where, no, I wouldn't," he says with typical candour.

Sadly, too many have taken the latter view, hence the relatively small tally of 19 caps. Staples, after all, could be one of our best, maybe the best, full back we've ever had. Notions that he long since lost the bottle to take his opponent head-on are rubbish. Indeed, Staples's catalogue of injuries underlines his almost reckless bravery.

Most notably there have been damaged knee ligaments, a broken hand, concussion, a prolapsed disc and, latterly, the broken jaw sustained playing for Harlequins against Bath. Again, don't cry for him.

"I haven't had a lot of luck but I've had a bit more luck than some. Fortunately I'm a pretty good healer as well. Apart from the incorrectly diagnosed muscle tear that kept me out for virtually the whole season, the injury side of things is not something that gets me down."

Ambition still burns. Deep down he knows he's good. He'd like to have done more for his country. But he's very proud of what he has achieved. Many international rugby places are an heirloom of sorts - through family or schooling.

Staples was the first in his family tree to pick up a rugby ball. "My expectations, starting out, weren't enormously high. So if I broke my leg tomorrow, he says, dangerously tempting fate, "I could certainly say I enjoyed myself."

IN any event, time is running out. This looks like either being his last or second-last season - and possibly the best.

"From a personal point of view, the way things are going at Harleguins, it is my best season.

On and off the field, Staples is a slightly changed man in this, his second season at Harlequins. He was almost obsessive in keeping himself to himself on arrival, earning the unlikely nickname of Serial Two on the basis that the quiet ones are the likeliest serial killers. Peter Winterbottom is Serial One.

Staples attributes his resurgent form with Harlequins this season to the arrival of former Natal coach Andy Keast.

"Keast is an outstanding coach, light years ahead of most of them. When he pointed out the importance of identifying space, for example, it took me six or seven games to fully understand what he was talking about but suddenly it all clicked into place - it has, made a big difference to my development this season. I owe a huge debt to Keast and to Dick Best."

So much could yet happen, this season alone. Today could mark the pivotal leg in an unlikely Triple Crown, and there's the Lions tour in the distance of summer. So, being an Irishman in the City, playing at Harlequins, and living in England, this is just another game then?

Thankfully, Staples is way too honest for that cliche. "I'd love to say it's just another game but it isn't. I was having dinner with Jason (Leonard) and Will (Carling) after training sessions all last week and we talked about everything else but, the game.

You don't want to tempt fate, but winning in Cardiff has brought everyone's expectations up unrealistically high. We're still starting out, and a Five Nations' championship is so short the difference between getting it right" and getting it wrong is very fine.

"England have impressive power throughout their team and they are capable of imposing an uncomfortable pattern of play, if you allow them to take the initiative. For that reason the opening 20 minutes will be massively important and it's up to Ireland to make life difficult for them by exerting pressure in all departments.

"We want to give the crowd every reason to get behind us from the outset. I'll be looking for an Ireland win and a collective performance that does ourselves justice."

Before the interview began he removed his new falsies, having lost two teeth in that jaw-breaking incident eight weeks ago. He ends the interview speaking of the broken hand he sustained in Perth, and of a picture of the incident.

"It's great because Geoghegs. (Simon Geoghegan) is coming down on his feet, the correct way, and I'm landing on my hand. We're both coming down in opposite ways. I've got very few rugby relics, but that's one picture which I've framed.

"I'd love one of us coming first on Saturday, if anyone can sort that out.