Rob Buchanan: Rugby Professional

Rob Buchanan was Head of School at St Bede’s Senior School, leaving in 2009 to immediately take up a contract with the Harlequins. Rob spent five years at the Senior School and several years at the Prep School. Here he tells us about his first year as a professional rugby player.

Leaving St Bede’s in 2009 and going straight into my first professional pre season was a big eye opener; training with players who I had watched for years on TV and playing for Quins and England. It was also a nerve-racking time, trying to learn all of the new play book, which is around 50 pages long, which you are handed on the first day and expected to have learned by the following week (a couple of experiences of being pulled up in a team meeting and asked: ‘What clearing pattern/move would you use here?’ Of course you can’t remember, so it usually ends up in some sort of physical punishment after training! But its all character building. But what made it worse was that I had to learn two playbooks in that time, one for Quins and one for my loan club!

During pre-season I finally found out what it was like to play sport professionally (exhausting). I would train till around 4:00pm and then I would get home and collapse into bed and go to sleep only to wake up for dinner and go straight back to bed! Towards the end of the 2009 pre-season I went away with England U18s to South Africa. We played a selection of teams and won all our matches, which again was a great experience; experiencing a different style of rugby and seeing a country I would probably never have been able to visit had I not been selected.

The season started and I was playing every Saturday for a national Division 2 club (Ealing Trailfinders), who I was on loan to from Quins. On most Mondays we would have Quins 2nd team games (A league) playing against other premiership teams. Scoring against London Irish whilst wearing the coveted Quins shirt for the first time at the Stoop was an experience I won’t forget for a while.

As the year progressed training Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday with games on Saturday and Monday was beginning to take its toll on me mentally and physically. The perception of professional sports people is that they train for an hour a day and then go home!! I can assure you it is quite the opposite, most days will begin at 6:00am and when training with my loan club we will probably not finish till 11:00pm. But thankfully it is not all physical work; there is a lot of video analysis of yourself, other teams, and our own team, to try and iron out any issues there may be for the forthcoming game that weekend.

By the time Christmas arrived, I was ready for a break, even though it was only Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, before I was back to the regimented schedule of training and games. Around Easter I was selected to play for England U20's against Wales due to their hooker receiving an injury in training. Another thing I have learnt playing rugby for most of my life, - take an opportunity given to you and take full advantage of it! An extra bonus was the fact that the game was being televised on Sky Sports. I didn’t play for long, unfortunately, but it put me in good stead for what was to come later on in the season, and I enjoyed being on TV which was a very surreal experience!

I was coming to the end of my first gruelling professional season and with a few games left I was picked, due to injury again, to play in my first premiership game for the Quins first team, against one of the biggest and best clubs in the premiership, Leicester, who have held the Premiership trophy since 2007 and have the likes of Lewis Moody (England captain), Castro Giorvani (Italy international and one of the best scrummagers in modern rugby) George Chuter (England hooker) and Alesandro Tualagi (Samoa international) to name but a few. The game was being played at Wellford Road which is the Leicester ground and is regarded as a fortress, and it takes a very good team to beat Leicester at home in front of 24,000 screaming/abusive fans!! But as the Quins Director of Rugby, Connor O'Shea said to me before I went onto the pitch for the last 10mins of the game: ‘There is no place better to play your debut.’ The atmosphere was unreal, running out of the changing rooms you just see a wall of fans in the massive stadium and the noise is deafening. Unfortunately we lost the game but the experience was amazing and I will never forget it!

The next unexpected turn in my season was the call up to the U20's Junior World Cup to be held in Argentina for four weeks. We had a pretty brutal one week camp just as the season ended with fitness testing/ fitness and lots of training just to get ready for the World Cup. We then went out to Argentina a week early, so we could get acclimatized and just iron out any final issues before we faced a formidable Argentina at home for the first game of the tournament.

Being able to go to the World Cup was another experience that I don’t think I would have been able to do had I not been selected; Argentina itself is an amazing country although the people can be a bit hostile still! It is a lovely place. The highlight of Argentina for me has to be the amount of steak that we had to consume throughout the four weeks we were there which I loved!

Whilst we were out there we held rugby camps for local teams which I really enjoyed, as it gave me a chance to work with youngsters from Argentina who were willing to learn and although they could not speak any English it was a good laugh as you met some real characters! Unfortunately I did not manage to play that much, yet I did manage to get some game time in the final match against South Africa. Unfortunately England only managed fourth over all, but we all had a good time and it has given me some vital experience for the next U20s World Cup in 2011 due to be held in Italy.

Once back in the UK I managed to get two weeks off before beginning pre-season training again. The new season has a lot in store for me again. I have just been named in the England U20's squad for the Six Nations coming up nearer Easter, and multiple camps coming up in Portugal and Twickenham. Hopefully another 1st team game will be on the cards even though I am still young. My rugby has improved massively since this time last year so am looking to progress in the A league games and in games for my loan club, this is also a crucial year as I have contract negotiations coming up around Christmas and the New Year.

I’ve found my first year as a professional sportsman has been the best time of my life up to date, with plenty of highs and some lows and lots of hard work, especially in the cold winter months when it’s snowing and you have to go and train in the freezing cold. But it is all worth it; whether it’s for the crack with the lads, or just because of the experiences I have mentioned above which have just made me want more!