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Missing the Game, Loving the Moment

When we sit down to do some profiling with former player, it’s always tempting to go down the rabbit hole of their career. The highs, the lows. The wins. The disappointments. The brief, more often than not, is to focus on what comes next. And yet, the pull of what came before is hard to resist.

Lauren Delany is a bit of an anomaly in that respect.

It’s almost a year to the day since Lauren Delany announced her retirement from the game. It was something as a surprise to many given it came on the eve of the Women’s Six Nations, but unbeknownst to most, her life had already begun to move on.

We speak on a weekday afternoon, and the conversation opens with the happy gurgles of her six-month old daughter, Josie. It felt appropriate. The tone was immediately future focused, drizzled with insight from all that came before.

Despite earning 26 caps for her country, Delany still seems surprised when prompted to frame her sporting life through a rugby lens. That’s because there was a full career before the oval ball. Most of it spent on the basketball court.

Rugby was late to the stage and there was no grand calling. Following the conclusion of her studies at Loughborough University, she moved to Milton Keynes where a basketball team was conspicuous by its absence.

“I had to take up a new sport because that was the only way I knew how to make friends in a new area,” she says. “I’m not sure I went the right way about it though… I was told off for being too competitive!”  

That, in itself, tells you a lot about Lauren Delany. There are no half measures.

From Bletchley RFC, things gathered pace. Clubs, promotions, a talent ID day, and suddenly a call from the national side. It can be easy to tidy a journey like that into a narrative of inevitability but Delany resists that instinct.

“When I started playing I didn’t really know the game very well at all,” she reveals. “Even today I still think I’m learning things about it. I was new to the sport and I didn’t really put a huge amount of pressure on myself, I just enjoyed it for what it was.

“The contact element brought a different kind of pressure so I just worked really, really hard on the basics to make sure I didn’t risk injury or something, and then I moved through the levels pretty quickly.”

So quickly in fact that just four years later, Lauren Delany made her Irish Rugby debut against the USA in November 2018. The next five would become one of the most cherished periods of her life.

“The thing that always gets me is the anthems,” she says. “Every time I heard them during the Men’s Six Nations, I could feel myself welling up. It brings you back to those precious few moments before a game, to the excitement and to the pride.

“Getting the opportunity to represent your country is such a special thing and I loved how it used to bring my friends and family together.

“But the more time has passed, the more I’ve realised just how much I loved the training, how much I loved seeing everyone when we got into camp, and how much I loved doing something really well.

“I got a massive buzz playing for Ireland and all I came with it,” she adds. “I definitely miss it, but I think you can miss something and still be very happy with where you are.” 

It’s a line that captures something many struggle to articulate. Too often, the heartbeat of sport is mistaken for the matches alone, when in truth it lives just as much in the making of them.

In Delany’s case the distinction certainly matters. Rugby never existed in isolation; it ran alongside everything else.

With other lives running parallel to her rugby career, matches at the weekend could feel like the only protected minutes of her life. Her PhD studies and work as a nutritionist often threatened to overlap. And yet, had she been offered a full-time contract by the IRFU, she is unsure whether it would have been for her.

“I’ve always juggled things,” she says. “For good or for bad, I always felt I needed something alongside my sport.

“It was difficult at times,” she concedes. “I worked with Leeds Rhinos and Sale Sharks throughout my PhD and so even though I’d block off time to go and play in the Six Nations, I was still answering messages from players about this and that.

“The PhD has probably been a tougher thing to manage. During the World Cup qualification tournament I had about 150 hours of interview to transcribe which the girls found amusing!

“Thankfully my supervisors were very understanding once they had plenty of warning and assurances that I’d make up the time. I tried to do a little bit every day but there was always a mountain of work waiting for you at the end.”

It was in those moments that the need for support became real. Delany leaned on Rugby Players Ireland, and in particular Aoife Lane, as both a guide and a sounding board.

At first, it was all about perspective before it developed into something deeper, and searching. There was never the need for a dramatic intervention, just simple, steady conversation.

“I think Aoife [Lane] was one of the first ones to confront me and say, ‘Lauren, you can’t do everything. You’ve got to compromise.’ Most people would have advised me that it was either one thing or the other, but from day one I felt Aoife was on my side because she wanted to help me find a way through.

“Then there came a point when I was chatting to her every few weeks, and perhaps even more as retirement began to loom. My head was absolutely ruined by it all.

“As expectations on all sides ramped up, everyone wanted more and more of my time. And yet I could never promise anything. There was the constant uncertainty of selection too. I never knew whether I’d be involved with a squad, but I’d block time off just incase.

“Aoife was great throughout that time in helping me make sense of it all. What’s the priority? How can we make it work for now, but also… what’s the priority long term?”

In the end, the decision came down to timing, and a life that was beginning to grow beyond the game.

“Right now my absolute focus is on Josie, on helping her how to sit, to crawl, to walk and to talk,” she declares with unmistakable pride. “As much as I love to do this and that, she is very much my priority.

“With my PhD coming to an end, so too did my role with Sale Sharks, so the future from that perspective is still a little bit up in the air but it’s not something I’m worried about for now.

“I’d love to continue with the research side of things and combine it with some practitioner work but it all depends on what comes up really.”

There is something refreshing in her honesty. There’s no neat ending or a pre-packaged next step. Just possibility. And yet that uncertainty fails to make her rugby retirement more pronounced.

“I don’t regret it,” she says of hanging up her boots. “I still feel the pull. It’s not the kind of thing that’s going to vanish overnight, but I see that as a good thing. It shows how much it meant and makes me more grateful for the career I was able to have, and enjoy.

“I mean, I could sit here all day and talk about the what ifs but at some stage Josie will pull my hair and bring me back into the present again.

“And I’ll be very happy to be in that moment.”