Sadly many players don't have a Plan B

ON RUGBY:Rugby isn't soccer; there aren't millions to be earned. At some point provisions have to be made for life after rugby, writes BOB CASEY

I MUST be getting old, not quite a dinosaur but it can occasionally feel like I’m close to extinction with the aches and pains after matches. Another way in which I can appreciate that some of my team-mates are from a different generation is the preoccupation they have with rugby to the exclusion of virtually everything else. It concerns me.

I am a product of a time where the financial reward for being a professional rugby player allows a certain privileged lifestyle but there is no way that a player can salt away enough money to retire by the time he finishes playing the sport. I’m talking about someone who plays for eight or 10 years so you can imagine how precarious financially it might be for a player whose career lasts two or five years for example.

It is so important that young players provide for a life after rugby and by that I mean earn some educational qualifications. I was encouraged to study while playing rugby as were many players of my generation. It was almost a throwback to the amateur days when international players worked nine-to-five and fitted in their rugby commitments around the day job.

I’m enjoying some work experience in the city at the moment, conscious that my rugby career is a finite thing. I look around at some of the young players coming into the sport and they have put everything into the rugby basket. Academies are full of hopefuls, all of whom have talent and all of whom believe that they are destined for greatness.

The reality is a great deal less romantic as probably only two of say 11 players who enter an academy in a given year will go on to earn a high-end salary. Of the nine remaining, some won’t make it into the professional game and the others will earn enough to make a decent living but as soon as they hang up the boots, it’s time for Plan B. Sadly for many there is no Plan B. It can be a real culture shock to have to start studying at 25 years of age or later.

Being able to shoot 62 around Sawgrass on the X-Box console should not have a prominent place on anyone’s CV. I know that Ireland coach Declan Kidney always encouraged his players to study while they were playing rugby. That’s sensible career guidance.

Rugby isn’t soccer; there aren’t millions to be earned. At some point provisions have to be made for life after rugby. Then there is the injury factor. Currently at London Irish, Adam Thompstone and Declan Danaher are gone for the season because of injury while Delon Armitage is out for 12 weeks. It’s not something that any player dwells on but a career can be over in an instant.

I’m beginning to worry myself a little here. Am I about to wander the corridors of the club like some curmudgeonly old player, browbeating the youngsters about getting a good education? There could be some lonely meal times ahead.

Actually there’ll be another reason for a lack of faces around the place next month when the November Test series begins. Under the new guidelines agreed between the clubs and the RFU, English national squad players can only play a certain number of matches and that doesn’t take into account the games they will miss while on England duty in November and during the Six Nations Championship.

The key for Guinness Premiership teams is how they will cope without their internationals. It’s not so bad if you’re missing a couple of players but some clubs are going to be very heavily hit. It’s why coaches look carefully at their playing rosters every summer to see how a club will fare during those Test match periods.

The calculation at the moment is that an England player could expect to miss 10 Premiership matches during a season: that’s a serious inconvenience for a club. Internationals obviously command the biggest salaries yet they play less than others at the club. It’s a funny anomaly. When they come back after a period away, there’s always a bedding in period required for them to assimilate new calls and basically just get back into the swing of the club game.

I bumped into former Armagh coach John McCloskey – he was part of the Joe Kernan-led backroom team when the county won the 2002 All-Ireland Football title – in my apartment complex and we talked about his new role at Wasps. He signed a two-year deal and is really enjoying every minute. Shaun Edwards brought him over in a consultancy capacity initially after Wasps were thumped 41-11 by Leinster in last season’s Heineken Cup.

It’s great to see members of the GAA fraternity regarded as elite sportspeople. They’re as good as any professionals and that’s a great compliment to an amateur sport. London Irish coach Toby Booth isn’t averse to borrowing from other sports. He took time to watch the New Zealand rugby league team training in preparation for their game against the Aussies.

There are always things that you can take and tweak from other sports and Toby would be regarded as an innovator in that respect. I remember prior to the Sale and Leinster games he brought a couple of paddling pools to training and filled them with water.

You had to jump in and immerse yourselves before training started and he also hosed down the rugby balls. He checked the long-range weather forecast and knew that rain was expected on both nights so he wanted to ape the match conditions at training.

After releasing this nugget of information I can see the sales of paddling pools going through the roof. Toby might even get his face on the side of one as a brand endorsement.

Speaking of coaches our new defence guru Dave Ellis – he spent almost a decade with the French national team – has set up a gathering he likes to call “The Tackle Club”. They meet at 8.30am on Tuesday mornings and attendance is by invitation. No one wants to go.

If you miss a tackle or adjudged to have messed up defensively then you receive a “cordial invitation” requesting your presence. Dave and former Ireland international Justin Bishop, who’s now involved in the academy, work on your technique.

There are a couple of unwritten rules in the Tackle Club. One is to never pair up with one of the islanders. At best you’ll end up with mild concussion while the worst-case scenario might involve brain damage. It’s best to avoid the South Africans too, because like the islanders they don’t differentiate between the tackling intensity of matches and training. As club captain I exercise my right to pick the smallest, lightest tackle buddy I can find. Pride goes out the window as self-preservation sweeps in the front door.

I was a guest on ESPN last night to take part in a studio discussion about the Premiership game between Liverpool and Manchester United at Anfield. See, I’m already looking ahead to those post-rugby days.