European Cup Quarter-finals:Leinster hooker Bernard Jackman tells Johnny Watersonhow his career has changed so much in just a few months
Bernard Jackman ambles into the Donnybrook ground, a healing gash running from above his eyebrow upwards and towards the red borderline of skin and scalp. All over his shaved head are contact nicks and ruck scrapes. Jackman looks like he was built for this life - made for life in the frontrow. The 30-year-old has that boot-camp veneer, the imposing shape and carriage of someone whose daily routine is defined by physical actions.
In his line of work, a place driven by fantasy and ambition, Jackman has learned to be the realist more than the dreamer. He has taught himself the rules for a career laced with pitfalls and a savage weekly selection program. But his life as a professional rugby player with Leinster, at one point late last year, almost drifted out of his own control.
Before Christmas, Jackman was making alternative plans. The realist in him had been nagging. It was telling him that third-placed hooker behind Brian Blaney and Harry Vermass was not the place to be when his contract expired in June.
Still training and fighting for a foothold, trying to get Michael Cheika and Mike Brewer to take notice, his pragmatic streak was knocking away, urging him to arrange a parachute out of the very place he loved labouring.
"The fact that I was dropped . . . well you kinda think, Jesus, if you don't turn things around here you mightn't have a career," he says. "Yeah, I sat down and thought like that. I was making plans for what I was going to do next year, thinking of maybe going into a coaching role in an AIL club. I also thought about going to Italy for a year, to Treviso. I was thinking, even if I got back on the Leinster bench would that be good enough to keep the contract. Probably not.
"It was up in June (2007) and I thought there was no way Leinster were going to keep me if I was third-choice hooker. I came here to be first-choice hooker, but those are the hard facts and those are the things that are going to keep the guys competitive for the jersey.
"If you are sub you're always thinking: 'Will I get my break, will I get my break? Will he lose form, will he get injured?' It's a horrible way to be hoping that something will happen one of you mates. But that's the way it is. You've to make sure you take your chance when you get it.
"Yeah it's savage, it's cut-throat. Yeah, of course, I love it. But there will be guys cut in June who don't deserve to get cut or haven't got the breaks. That's harsh. But that's the way it is and you've got to appreciate it when you have it."
Jackman is something of an accidental tourist. His aspiration in Newbridge College was to play club rugby. With that in mind, he went to DCU to study international marketing and Japanese. When Warren Gatland came looking for him in Clontarf with an offer to play in Connacht prior to Ireland's first season of the professional era, he had already lined up a six-month trip to Japan. At that stage, there were only five players on contract in the province.
"I said I'm going to Japan," says Jackman. "He basically said - he was a teacher himself so he was pro-education - that no one knows how pro rugby is going to go. It might last a year and fade or take off big-time. If it lasts a year and it folds, you'll be one of those guys who did it for a year or if it takes off, you'll be in the system and be a year ahead of the other guys."
As vague as it was alluring, it opened Jackman's eyes to something he hadn't dared consider before. Pro football. He was smitten. "I jacked in Japan."
That was the accidental start. The middle was the tourist part and the hooker travelled from Clontarf to Connacht, from Connacht to Sale, from Sale back to Connacht and from Connacht to Leinster. The last four months have been a glorious and ultimately a successful struggle. Not only was he dropped from the Leinster bench, but he was struggling with a throwing technique that did not hold up consistently under pressure.
Given the importance of the Leinster lineout, that frailty couldn't be overlooked. Nor did he ignore it. He worked in the shadows, added more vigour to his defence and started to knit bigger tackles into his overall game. Blaney then got injured, Jackman leap-frogged Vermass and Treviso was forgotten. The immediate concern is no longer next season's pay cheque, but Raphael Ibanez, the Wasps hooker.
"I've been dealing with it (throwing) better than I have before. My game was very much 200 miles an hour and then I'd go to a lineout and really just throw it out," says Jackman. "Cheika has been able to help me in that regard. He broke the whole process down to make sure I had the same routine for every throw. When you're throwing in the 79th minute of a match you are doing exactly the same thing as when you are in the throwing session. It has helped bring a better consistency.
"My confidence and mental toughness is better. If I throw a few bad ones I play away and not let it worry me and make sure I go through the process for the next one. I know if I do that my percentage of good throws will be up there where I want it to be."
He feels more settled in Leinster. He's in a position now to say that he's happier in Dublin that he was in Sale or Connacht. He's pleased that he's in possession of the shirt, cautiously confident that he can make a contribution to Leinster's quarter-final bid. Now on the big stage, his French counterpart presents another opportunity and challenge.
"Having watched the Six Nations, Ibanez has been on fire," says Jackman. "He's been around for a long time and he is one of the top hookers in the world. I am looking forward to locking horns with him. This week it's Heineken Cup and I have started to look at some of his game, see if I can get at him a bit. He's not the biggest guy in the world and he does carry the ball a lot, so I'll hope to try and get a hit on him early and basically harass him the whole day.
"All I can do is keep at him, force the pressure on him and try and make him make a few mistakes. To be honest, I don't think he'll be worried about me. All I'm worried about at the end of the match is that I've made a contribution. If I play as well I can, I'm confident I can."
He has also come to learn that seven-month-old daughter, Ava, eases his disappointments, tempers his successes.
Blaney is still there, Springbok Ollie Le Roux is on his way. Still, maybe now the son of a cattle dealer, the realist, will allow himself dream a little more.
