MIKE ROSS WORKS hard, thinks hard. No matter what the task.
Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
It’s the Ireland and Leinster tighthead’s day off and he’s doing what every international does at some stage of the season – just a little promotional work on the side.
Ross though, isn’t just slipping in for a photoshoot, a 15-minute chat and out the door again. He’s putting in the hours; cooped up in a hotel function room, signed up for a string of one-on-one interviews on behalf of EA Sports for the launch of an extension to their Star Wars game.
The42 is Ross’ last meeting of the day, but we don’t find a trace of annoyance or frustration. It’s the same soft-spoken, yet engaging man-mountain we’re used to at Carton House – where the media commitments are much less taxing.
They’d probably have to drag me out kicking and screaming… the decision will be made for me, put it like that.”
That was two days before a clash with England. Now, with international rugby a few months away, he can afford to be a smidge less bullish.
“You know your career is finite. You know it’s not going to be this way forever. I’m not deluding myself. I know I’m a lot closer to the end than the start.
“So you have to take every day as a gift. And every cap, treasure it, because you don’t know when you’ll get the next one… will I go to South Africa? I don’t know. I’d like to, but three months is a long time in rugby.”
Hitting home
Ross has signed on with Leinster until the end of next season. But post-career planning isn’t something that can be postponed. The wheels keep turning, and he has mouths to feed:
“We make good money, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not retiring on it.
“You’re always think about it. I’m always doing stuff in the background, so when the time comes I can make the transition easy enough.
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“A lot of players are like that, because you never know what can come your way. Look at Kev McLaughlin. He could’ve easily been there three more years. One bang to the head and… y’know.”
The way Ross speaks about rugby brings most to think he would be a natural candidate to smoothly switch from playing to a role as a scrum coach. Leo Cullen has a fresh template if the Corkman was interested. Yet while he has enjoyed the taste of coaching so far, Ross won’t be caught blithely agreeing or underestimating a harsh truth of coaching at the top level.
Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
“If you’re a coach you kind of have to move every four years. It’s not really great for home life stability. Unless you’re very lucky, or working at youth level or something like that.”
His toe-dip in the coaching pool has come at UCD. Close to home, closer to his day job, but the prop isn’t one to take the easy way out of anything. He’s putting his brain to work on the club’s scrum.
“It’s been interesting coming at it from the other side of the coin.
It makes you force yourself to think about what you do. How the other components interact. (Ireland scrum coach) Greg Feek’s been quite helpful, chatting to him: ‘how do I get this point across?’ Or, maybe I hadn’t really thought about the second rows – I know what I want from them, but how do they achieve that?
“There’s different components to the scrum and you have to make sure they all assemble and work together.
“You go from a professional to an amateur setup and you might only have 30-45 minutes, to get your point across. So you have to really think about what you’re going to do and how you can get things across as simply as possible. Because you don’t have hours to work and correct, work and correct…
“You try to correct the big things first; maybe they’re leaning too far in the setup. Or the hooker’s pulling them in too much so they’re off balance.
“A few little corrections will make the biggest difference.”
Mike Ross was speaking at the launch of Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Outer Rim – the first digital expansion pack for Season Pass owners. David Maher / SPORTSFILE
David Maher / SPORTSFILE / SPORTSFILE
If he does decide to take up a coaching post when he hangs up his scrumcap. He won’t feed players in cliches about ‘dark arts’ or hunger. The latter should be a given, the former is liable to get you penalised. When Ross or Feek get a chance to talk about Ireland’s scrum, they do so in proud terms and point to a consistent desire to scrummage straight, bound, fair and square.
It’s a philosophy, Ross says, that was driven by Joe Schmidt. So that his Leinster and now his Ireland team could earn a little room to play off the back of the set-piece. The alternative leaves backs standing with hands on hips while steam rises over re-set scrums.
“It came about because Joe very much wanted to be able to play off scrum. And if a scrum is collapsing, going sideways or there’s penalties going either way then you can’t do that.
“The best way to play off scrum, is to have a steady scrum. A lot of teams walk over the ball. That takes time, and it can be a lottery.
Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
“What if the team you’re scrummaging against is stronger than you are? How are you going to get the ball then?
“If you look at Canada during the World Cup; they wouldn’t have had the strongest scrum in the competition by a long shot. But their ball was so bloody quick we couldn’t get near them. By the time we had started to drive it was in and gone. That really showed how important hooking still is.”
After 20 minutes in yesterday’s loss to Connacht, next weekend’s big Aviva Stadium game against Munster – his native province that allowed him pack his bags for England – and the remainder of the Pro12 season will keep him from thinking much about that tour.
Unless he’s injured, he’ll be there. You can count on one hand the Tests he has missed since Schmidt took over. And he is still very much a cornerstone of the team.
He’s 36, that’s nothing but a number. His 59 caps have come in seven short years, and that late start is a key factor in the longevity that has taken him this far.
“And because I wasn’t in an academy,” he adds, “I haven’t been put through the wringer since I was 20. I might be 36, but I probably have the same miles on the clock as a 30-year-old who’s been through the mill.
“It probably helped that I was more mature when I started taking the big hits as opposed to being chucked in at the deep end from an early age.
People are always going to be there putting pressure on your place, One day they’re going to win. But until then you just keep showing up as best you can.”
Show up, do the work. Ross doesn’t disappoint.
Battlefront Season Pass owners will have access to exclusive new weapons like the Relby V-10 rifle and DT-12 blaster pistol, maps on Sullust and at Jabba’s Palace, a new game mode called Extraction, and two new playable characters: Greedo and Nien Nunb. For more information, visit click here.
Mike Ross: 'I might be 36, but I've the same miles on the clock as a 30-year-old'
MIKE ROSS WORKS hard, thinks hard. No matter what the task.
It’s the Ireland and Leinster tighthead’s day off and he’s doing what every international does at some stage of the season – just a little promotional work on the side.
Ross though, isn’t just slipping in for a photoshoot, a 15-minute chat and out the door again. He’s putting in the hours; cooped up in a hotel function room, signed up for a string of one-on-one interviews on behalf of EA Sports for the launch of an extension to their Star Wars game.
The42 is Ross’ last meeting of the day, but we don’t find a trace of annoyance or frustration. It’s the same soft-spoken, yet engaging man-mountain we’re used to at Carton House – where the media commitments are much less taxing.
It was in team Ireland’s Maynooth base where, last month, we broached the subject of retirement to Ross. The 36-year-old has braced himself for the day, but made sure nobody thought he was about to bow out easily.
That was two days before a clash with England. Now, with international rugby a few months away, he can afford to be a smidge less bullish.
“You know your career is finite. You know it’s not going to be this way forever. I’m not deluding myself. I know I’m a lot closer to the end than the start.
“So you have to take every day as a gift. And every cap, treasure it, because you don’t know when you’ll get the next one… will I go to South Africa? I don’t know. I’d like to, but three months is a long time in rugby.”
Hitting home
Ross has signed on with Leinster until the end of next season. But post-career planning isn’t something that can be postponed. The wheels keep turning, and he has mouths to feed:
“We make good money, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not retiring on it.
“You’re always think about it. I’m always doing stuff in the background, so when the time comes I can make the transition easy enough.
“A lot of players are like that, because you never know what can come your way. Look at Kev McLaughlin. He could’ve easily been there three more years. One bang to the head and… y’know.”
The way Ross speaks about rugby brings most to think he would be a natural candidate to smoothly switch from playing to a role as a scrum coach. Leo Cullen has a fresh template if the Corkman was interested. Yet while he has enjoyed the taste of coaching so far, Ross won’t be caught blithely agreeing or underestimating a harsh truth of coaching at the top level.
“If you’re a coach you kind of have to move every four years. It’s not really great for home life stability. Unless you’re very lucky, or working at youth level or something like that.”
His toe-dip in the coaching pool has come at UCD. Close to home, closer to his day job, but the prop isn’t one to take the easy way out of anything. He’s putting his brain to work on the club’s scrum.
“It’s been interesting coming at it from the other side of the coin.
“There’s different components to the scrum and you have to make sure they all assemble and work together.
“You go from a professional to an amateur setup and you might only have 30-45 minutes, to get your point across. So you have to really think about what you’re going to do and how you can get things across as simply as possible. Because you don’t have hours to work and correct, work and correct…
“You try to correct the big things first; maybe they’re leaning too far in the setup. Or the hooker’s pulling them in too much so they’re off balance.
“A few little corrections will make the biggest difference.”
If he does decide to take up a coaching post when he hangs up his scrumcap. He won’t feed players in cliches about ‘dark arts’ or hunger. The latter should be a given, the former is liable to get you penalised. When Ross or Feek get a chance to talk about Ireland’s scrum, they do so in proud terms and point to a consistent desire to scrummage straight, bound, fair and square.
It’s a philosophy, Ross says, that was driven by Joe Schmidt. So that his Leinster and now his Ireland team could earn a little room to play off the back of the set-piece. The alternative leaves backs standing with hands on hips while steam rises over re-set scrums.
“It came about because Joe very much wanted to be able to play off scrum. And if a scrum is collapsing, going sideways or there’s penalties going either way then you can’t do that.
“The best way to play off scrum, is to have a steady scrum. A lot of teams walk over the ball. That takes time, and it can be a lottery.
“What if the team you’re scrummaging against is stronger than you are? How are you going to get the ball then?
“If you look at Canada during the World Cup; they wouldn’t have had the strongest scrum in the competition by a long shot. But their ball was so bloody quick we couldn’t get near them. By the time we had started to drive it was in and gone. That really showed how important hooking still is.”
He still remembers the analysis of the opening World Cup fixture clearly, and praises hooker Ray Barkwill for churning the ball out through ‘channel one’ in half a second. Rory Best hooked the ball out swiftly for Ireland last weekend too. Signs of a clean, efficient scrum effort that will be needed when Ireland take on the mountainous task of three Tests in South Africa.
Longevity
After 20 minutes in yesterday’s loss to Connacht, next weekend’s big Aviva Stadium game against Munster – his native province that allowed him pack his bags for England – and the remainder of the Pro12 season will keep him from thinking much about that tour.
Unless he’s injured, he’ll be there. You can count on one hand the Tests he has missed since Schmidt took over. And he is still very much a cornerstone of the team.
He’s 36, that’s nothing but a number. His 59 caps have come in seven short years, and that late start is a key factor in the longevity that has taken him this far.
“And because I wasn’t in an academy,” he adds, “I haven’t been put through the wringer since I was 20. I might be 36, but I probably have the same miles on the clock as a 30-year-old who’s been through the mill.
“It probably helped that I was more mature when I started taking the big hits as opposed to being chucked in at the deep end from an early age.
Show up, do the work. Ross doesn’t disappoint.
Battlefront Season Pass owners will have access to exclusive new weapons like the Relby V-10 rifle and DT-12 blaster pistol, maps on Sullust and at Jabba’s Palace, a new game mode called Extraction, and two new playable characters: Greedo and Nien Nunb. For more information, visit click here.
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Six Nations Interview Ireland Leinster Mike Ross Munster