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Something New to Chase

The phone line drops mid-call. It’s unlikely the WiFi has dropped. Peter Maher is working out of JP Morgan on Grand Canal Dock and it’s not the sort of place where the internet tends to give trouble.

“I’ll call you back in 2 secs,” he WhatsApps.

A couple of minutes pass by before the call comes back in. “So, that’s that then,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Anyways, as I was saying…”

In those intervening moments, Maher had received a call from St. Vincent’s Hospital to confirm that the injury he sustained in Clontarf’s semi-final win over Lansdowne would rule him out of Sunday’s Energia AIL final against St. Mary’s at the Aviva Stadium. 

Unfortunately, it is not new territory. Maher’s indifferent reaction makes this obvious. Throughout his rugby career big occasions and bad timing have often shared the same space.

“Look, if you told me at the start of the season that I’d play 17 games for ‘Tarf and get to an AIL semi-final in one piece, I I’d have bitten your hand off for it,” when we finally confront the news he has just received. “It’s obviously a bit unfortunate but this kind of thing happens in sport. I’m well used to it.”

Despite his evident ability, when Maher left Belvedere College in 2017 expectations were relatively modest. A talented footballer, he had his sights mostly set on Croke Park. Yet as soon as Leinster Rugby gave him sight of the system, his perspective began to change. From there, the Irish Sevens came calling. 

“I probably felt I was overachieving a bit in the beginning,” he concedes. “I’d never played any representative rugby through school, and all of a sudden doors started opening for me.

“Every step was a little daunting but once I set foot in a high-performance environment, I felt I had the ability to make a real impact. I didn’t feel out of place.

“The problem I always had was consistency,” he continues. “Not in terms of performance, but in terms of availability. I’d get a run of games and then I’d be back on the physio table for a few months. I just couldn’t get going.”

It was a cycle that kept repeating. Indeed, momentum – injury – reset became the defining rhythm of his Sevens career. Unfortunately, it was a cadence that wasn’t conducive to the intensity of the Sevens code, and Maher saw far less action than his talents deserved.

To get a proper sense of Maher as a rugby player then, you have to ask those who saw it up close, and one former teammate was particularly effusive in his praise.

“He was a brilliant 7s player,” they said. “Stupidly fast, good feet, fit, a good tackler. He was a leader in our team, brought energy and enthusiasm. He always worked the hardest and was genuine in his approach, and got on with everyone. He wasn’t afraid to ask questions or call people out either. He spoke a lot of sense.”

Having found his opportunities to show what he could do limited, Maher came to rely on recognition from those who saw what never fully played out. Their encouragement kept him going.

“I couldn’t shout about much in my rugby career, so validation from those guys – some of the world’s best players in the Sevens game – was a bit of a saving grace,” he says when the tribute is relayed to him.

“My family and friends never really got to see me in full flow, so to have teammates like that continue to back me… that meant more than they probably realise.”

By 2023 though, Maher’s lack of competitive action had become hard to ignore. A series of injuries, including a persistent hamstring issue, had left him increasingly sidelined for World Series events. For all his ability, he lacked availability.

“I knew things weren’t really going anywhere, that much was obvious” he admits, “so as the lads were zoning in on the Olympics in Paris, I thought: ‘I better go and get a proper job.’”

“This is where Carol Keenan (now of the Sport Ireland Institute) and Rugby Players Ireland come in,” he notes. “Carol was a legend! She was always sending me information and flagging opportunities. I probably ignored some of it at first but when push came to shove, she had built a good picture of me.

“It was helped by the environment too. I was chatting to Hugo Lennox recently and we were remarking how lucky we were to have been part of a squad that openly encouraged study and work.

“As soon as some of the most senior lads in the group were finished training, they headed off to college, to work or to internships. That made a big impression on me because it kind of showed you straight away that rugby wasn’t going to last forever, and you needed to be thinking about what comes next.”

One of the many options Keenan put to Maher was JP Morgan’s Military & Athlete Training Programme. A 6-month paid opportunity, it is designed to help elite athletes bridge the gap between high-performance sport and a career in business.

Following a robust application process, candidates gain hands-on experience, mentoring and development across many areas of the banking ecosystem like operations, technology, risk and business management.  

Maher was initially placed in a cybersecurity-focused role. And yet, it wasn’t the technical demands of the job that stood out to him most.

“I think we’re all a bit guilty of throwing around some of the clichés about elite sportspeople going into business,” he believes. “I’ve done it myself because a lot of the stuff certainly sounds impressive but not all of it rings true. 

“Like, everyone says you’ll never get the same sort of team bond again but I think the office is just a different expression of that environment. You might think it’s going be a bit stiff and formal, but you quickly realise that they’re just normal people who like having the same chats I do at lunchtime.

“That being said, I do see how sport can give you an edge in some aspects. If I’m honest, I presumed most people have the skills that are nicely packaged around an elite athlete but not everyone has the ability to communicate clearly under pressure, for example. That’s a really valuable thing in the workplace.”

Having been offered a full-time contract following the conclusion of his placement, Maher has found a new home with JP Morgan. He’s enjoying the change, even if it hasn’t always been seamless.

“The biggest thing I had to deal with was actually keeping my focus throughout the day” he reveals. “My rugby schedule was built around high-intensity training followed by complete rest, then a burst of effort again, rest again.

“There were some days I got to 2 or 3pm and my brain just wasn’t at the races,” he says. “I wasn’t used to having to be switched on for that long.”

It didn’t take him long to adjust, while the security of his role gave him time to settle into a new rhythm. And despite the seismic lifestyle shift, it’s one that still leaves room for rugby.

A regular presence on the wing for Clontarf this season, he has rediscovered something that had been harder to access earlier in his career: enjoyment.

“When I was trying to break into the professional bubble, I was always thinking too much about who was watching,” he reflects. “I always kept an eye on the sideline to see what selectors were there, what coaches were there.

“Even when I was with the Sevens programme, I felt I had to prove myself time and time over again because I’d be in and out of the picture. It’s hard to play at your best when you’re putting your body and mind under all that pressure.

“I’m loving my rugby at the moment but I wouldn’t say I’ve taken my foot off the gas,” he points out. “The standard of the AIL is savage, so that was never an option. I’d just say I don’t put as much on myself anymore.”

At 27, Maher could have had years of his best rugby ahead of him but the game is no longer his guiding star. He doesn’t dwell on his misfortune either. The frustration is there, but his injury profile has also forced a kind of clarity on his identity, direction, and what comes next.

And this weekend, as Clontarf run out in an AIL final he won’t quite make, Maher will find himself in a familiar position: close to the moment, but not fully in it.

“Having started out thinking I was overachieving by being there, when I look back on it now I feel like I probably underachieved in the end,” he says.

“And yet I don’t resent any of it. I’d do it all over again if I could.”