GAVIN CUMMISKEYon how a sense of prespective and the players' body Irupa helped the former Ireland prop cope when heart problems ended his sporting career

DURING SUCH heady days it is no harm to pause for reflection. Just imagine how Simon Best must have felt when the Ireland squad, including his brother Rory, posed for pictures on the Millennium Stadium turf moments after capturing the Grand Slam.

The former Ulster captain, capped 23 times for Ireland at tighthead prop, had just turned 29 and understandably felt he deserved to be soaking up this euphoric moment. Instead, heart problems had curtailed his career.

The inexplicable and traumatising events in life rarely serve any warning notice.

Rewind 18 months and he was in the bunker with the rest of the struggling Ireland squad as the World Cup adventure collapsed around Eddie O’Sullivan.

On the Wednesday before Sunday’s final Pool game against Argentina, Best was strolling around Bordeaux with Paddy Wallace. Two Ulster pals on the fringe of a national sporting disaster. In the space of 30 minutes Best’s perspective was altered forever as he began to feel pins and needles in his leg and struggled to form coherent sentences.

“It was bizarre because I was aware they were stroke symptoms but I couldn’t believe it could possibly be anything like that. I just thought I was run down or something. The symptoms stayed, my speech got a bit worse so I got more concerned.

“I was under no stress at all or exertion. We went back to the hotel and I had already phoned (Ireland team doctor) Gary O’Driscoll and explained what was happening. By the time I got back to the hotel, after an hour or so, things had begun to resolve themselves. We went to the hospital to get it checked out and I had problems with my speech again. I felt quite panicked at the time. An irregular heartbeat developed and was eventually diagnosed.”

The layers of criticism heaped upon Ireland’s on field performances were immediately put in perspective. After an MRI scan, an angiogram and a CT, Best was transferred from Pellegrin hospital to Haut Lévêque hospital for further examination. Little did the Banbridge man realise that rugby as a profession was over.

On the advice of Dr David Keane in Blackrock Clinic he gave it six months but it was apparent a heart condition was not conducive to such a high intensity pursuit.

“I was advised that it wouldn’t be in my best interest to go back to a job where you were constantly raising your heart-rate under pressure like that.

“I could go back but it was a hard decision to make considering what my family and friends had been through with me. I think it would have been difficult for them to have to watch me on the pitch. It didn’t come to that as I felt I would be better off (retiring).”

Such a trauma is a clear and present danger for anyone adopting such an attritional means of earning a living but the spectre of heart problems has hung over Irish sport since Tyrone football captain Cormac McAnallen and under-19 rugby international John McCall both died from heart failure within a few months of each other in 2004.

For Best it must have been hugely difficult to watch his younger brother go on to become part of Irish sporting folklore, or his replacement in the Ulster frontrow, naturalised Australian Tom Court, become the international prop cover. Best was the natural successor to John Hayes in anchoring the Irish scrum.

“It is a bit of a shock initially. I was a bit luckier in that I had about six months to get my head around it. I was able to take a bit of time to resign myself to it. A serious neck or knee injury and your career is finished the next day.

“I’ve gone through it a few times in my head and that benefited me but, certainly, it was a shock. I wanted to play for a few more years.

“The position I played in you played until you were 35, 36. John Hayes is still playing and I suppose I maybe saw that as part of my progression into the team. I still harboured aspirations of becoming part of the starting line-up a bit more. I had been in the squad without having the amount of starts I wanted but your plans are gone pretty quickly.”

There was also a significant mortgage to be paid. Having studied agriculture at Newcastle University the Best family farm back in Banbridge provided some solace but the Irish Rugby Union Players Association (Irupa) insurance scheme ensured the financial consequences were not so harsh.

Irupa, under the guidance of chief executive Niall Woods, were approached by Shane O’Halloran, the former Dolphin winger and insurance broker with Arachas, almost four years ago with a group policy that guarantees a player forced into retirement 75 percent of his salary until he is 35 years old. The premium is three percent of that salary.

The IRFU deal, which takes 12 months to activate, is also beneficial, providing three years’ salary for players so long as that doesn’t exceed €350,000. Another catch is the percentage decrease of the full salary once a player is 26 years or older.

“The Irupa scheme protects your salary so you can return to studies or focus on your recovery,” said Best. “It allows you time to find a career that you would like to go into and not take the first job that is there.”

Paul Burke, now kicking coach with the Leicester Tigers, has also benefited from the Arachas scheme and another two players are due to utilise it when accepting early retirement this summer.

It has been a passion project for Woods, an international winger who was forced to retire in 2001 aged 30 after a two-year struggle to recover from a chronic knee injury. It took him another four years before any claim was settled.

“And I got about 50 percent of what I was due,” said Woods “I can now put it down to bad advice and the broker and insurance company not wanting to pay out the full amount.

“When I first came home (from London Irish) I tried to set up a scheme but was told by a number of people that it was too expensive. Then Shane O’Halloran and Arachas approached me.”

Last year Woods released findings of a survey of former professional Irish rugby players that revealed 41 percent of players have been forced into early retirement. The youngest was former international scrumhalf Ciarán Scally – who played Irish schools with Best – after a knee injury forced him out of the game, aged just 20, in 1999.

“The best part of this deal is it’s a group policy so there is no pre-existing injury clause,” explains Woods. “A player could have undergone a knee reconstruction injury and on an individual deal, received no payment for a knee injury for three years. Arachas pays out irrespective of past injuries.”

Simon Best has not been idle. Back involved with the family farm, he also became Banbridge’s representative on the Ulster Branch.

“Through that I got involved in Ulster’s professional committee. Players sometimes when they finish they finish altogether but it was important to me to stay involved as a lot of my experiences are applicable now.

“Again, that has helped cushion the blow. To be involved.”

Best feels that while the IRFU are doing a decent job, the more former professional players they can get to run the game here the better.

“Certainly on the professional side of things there are very few people on the committees at the minute who have been involved in the professional rugby at all. I think that is a transition that will happen but it is about offering the opportunities for guys to be involved.

“Getting involved in the running of the club game has been an eye-opener. There are a lot of things there I wasn’t aware of, having been involved in the professional game for so long.”

It should be apparent by now what type of character is required to recover from such a sudden, personal blow: the type of character required at the top of the professional pyramid in the first place.