WHEN THE SPECIALIST surgeon sat Rory O’Loughlin down earlier this year and advised him to retire from rugby, there was a sense of relief mixed in with all the other emotions.
Sadness, of course, that a career including 99 appearances for Leinster, one cap for Ireland, and two seasons with Exeter was over just after he had turned 30.
Deserved pride too at what he had achieved. There was also a jolt of fear about what would come next. All O’Loughlin had known up until that point was his sport. From the Bective minis through St Michael’s College and on into pro rugby – this was his life.
The relief part came after a true slog attempting to recover from the shoulder injury that forced him to retire. The Dublin man suffered that injury on 1 September 2023 in a pre-season game. He got back on the pitch a few months later but his final match was in January of this year in the Champions Cup against Glasgow when he lasted just 10 minutes. Soon after, the specialist told him it was time to hang his boots up.
“That was that,” said O’Loughlin this week as he reflected on his career in a café in Dublin, having recently returned home with his girlfriend, Lisa, and their one-year-old daughter, Lily.
After deciding to leave Leinster in 2022, O’Loughlin’s first season in Exeter had been thoroughly enjoyable. He played 23 games before a knee issue ended his campaign in April but he was back in flying form for pre-season last summer.
A week out from the start of the 2023/24 campaign, he came off the bench in a friendly against Bristol. With two minutes left, he was defending from a midfield scrum, the ball-carrier changed direction late, and O’Loughlin wasn’t able to get his right arm up properly as he launched himself into the tackle.
“I felt a click in the back of my shoulder and just instant pain,” he said. “The joint started swelling up straight away. I knew in my head it was going to be a while.”
The initial scan didn’t give a clear indication of the issue that would be identified months later. There was a suggestion of an operation to repair one of the tendons in his shoulder but it would have meant being out until February or March. Instead, they chose to manage the injury without surgery and he was back within nine weeks.
O’Loughlin had felt the need to get back on the pitch as soon as possible, with his Exeter contract expiring in the summer of 2024. This is the way in professional rugby – a long-term injury at the wrong time can mean being out of work the following season.
All appeared to be fine as O’Loughlin worked his way back, made a few appearances, and played the closing 30 minutes of Exeter’s impressive Champions Cup win over Munster last December with Lily and Lisa watching on at Sandy Park. The worries about his shoulder seemed to be over but looking back, O’Loughlin realised that he had to make just a single tackle on his right shoulder during that comeback spell.
A week later, he was in trouble again. He started against Leicester just before Christmas. With five minutes of the first half left, a big collision and that same pain, rush of fluid into the joint, and loss of power.
O’Loughlin convinced himself he could get through it and played on in the second half but then in the closing stages, a cross-kick was launched his way and as he went up against Mike Brown, he couldn’t lift his right arm, attempting to catch just with his left. Brown’s look of bemusement towards O’Loughlin said it all.
He admitted defeat and signalled that he needed to be subbed off. O’Loughlin flew home for Christmas that night and as he landed into Dublin, the prospect of retirement flickered into his mind for the first time.
“You’re back home meeting people and you can’t lift your arm to shake their hand,” said O’Loughlin. “I had a five-month-old daughter and I could barely pick her up. Family and friends are wondering what you’re doing to yourself.”
Back in Exeter in January, he was surprised when he found out he’d be starting at inside centre against Glasgow in the Champions Cup.
O’Loughlin thought it was a joke initially, having been uncertain whether he was even deemed available but he stresses that he wasn’t forced into action. Carrying injuries into games is a common thing in pro rugby. He couldn’t stomach the thought of turning down a start in the Champions Cup, a competition he had always loved.
“I got through training and it was sore but I was hoping the adrenaline would help. In hindsight, it was probably a bit stupid playing that game but in my head, I’m thinking, ‘I’ll get through this.’ One more game, get back into the cycle of rolling games together even when I had been carrying injuries.”
He was opposite the explosive Sione Tuipulotu. From the very first lineout, the Scotland international thundered down O’Loughlin’s channel towards his right shoulder. O’Loughlin awkwardly turned across himself to tackle with his left.
“I got up and having not even tackled with my right, it was that same pain again from landing on it,” said O’Loughlin. “Three minutes into the game and I’m asking myself how I’m going to do this.”
Tuipulotu instantly understood what was going on, calling to his team-mates to keep giving him the ball. A minute later, another lineout, another Tuipulotu carry, O’Loughlin used his left shoulder again, another gainline win for Tuipulotu. Exeter called O’Loughlin, who was in visible pain, ashore after 10 minutes.
“That was the first time I had ever come off that early in the game,” he said. “I was devastated. My girlfriend text me when I got back to the changing room, they had literally sat down in the stand when I got taken off.”
He vowed never to put himself in the same position. The idea was to use the Six Nations break in the Premiership season to properly rehab, but 10 weeks later he was still getting pain in his shoulder and the Exeter team doctor said it was time for specialist review.
The surgeon found what’s known as a chondral defect, or a gap in the cartilage, where the head of his humerus bone and the socket of the joint meet. That first blow in the Bristol pre-season game months before had done the damage. Arthritis had built up too. The specialist could have operated but the reality was that more bangs would end up affecting the quality of O’Loughlin’s life after rugby, possibly meaning a shoulder replacement by the age of 50. And so, the advice was to finish up with rugby.
“My mum was pretty relieved,” said O’Loughlin. “She had been there the whole time, seen all the injuries, and it gets harder.
“I didn’t tell all of my mates straight away but mentioned it to a few of them. They were all saying, ‘Surely you’re going to get to France next season, we need another trip every year!’ I had to tell them it wasn’t happening.”
What happened next says plenty about O’Loughlin’s character. There were still a few months of the season left but rather than just pack it in completely, the Irishman decided to stay with Exeter, offering to add as much value as he could in a non-contact capacity.
He became part of the group of players who would train against the first team in the lead-up to big games, suddenly finding himself in a crew of lads who were as young as 18 in some cases. O’Loughlin ended up enjoying that role as the wise head.
“Even when I left, Ali Hepher [Exeter's head coach] came up to me and said, ‘Fair play on how you handled it.’
“I was proud of that because I’ve seen players before who were leaving at the end of the season, they’d go home as soon as they could, not training, looking after themselves.”
When he looks back at it all now, O’Loughlin is grateful for what he got to do in rugby. At one stage, it looked like it wasn’t going to take off for him.
“It’s not as sad a thing when you get to see your career more as, ‘Wow, I actually did get to do a lot,’” he said.
He had come through St Michael’s, played for Ireland’s underage sides as a centre, and been brought into the Leinster academy but others were excelling as he waited for a chance with the senior team.
“Garry Ringrose was the year below me in the academy, same position, and had just played a full season,” said O’Loughlin.
“Guy Easterby [Leinster's chief operating officer] even said it to me later that, similar to Josh van der Flier, they didn’t see it happening for a while. They thought I might get pushed out. I hadn’t made any real impression.”
And then Stuart Lancaster arrived at the start of the 2016/17 season and everything changed. The Englishman pulled O’Loughlin aside and told him he’d be starting the third game of the campaign against Cardiff as Leinster began their mission of building a squad.
He did well and the following week, Lancaster told O’Loughlin he was moving from midfield to the wing, where he had never played, for a big clash with Munster.
“He said it’s easy, you just stay high in the line and listen to the other back three,” said O’Loughlin, who was thankful Rob Kearney and Isa Nacewa were in that back three with him. Their non-stop chat was an early lesson in the importance of communication, a skill he became proficient in.
O’Loughlin never looked back in that whirlwind season, playing more than 20 games including two Champions Cup starts and bagging 10 tries. By the end of it, he was called up to the Ireland squad for their tour of the US and Japan while the Lions were in New Zealand.
He recalled the speechless shock of the email arriving from the IRFU to confirm his spot, landing while he studied for exams in his Business and Law degree. O’Loughlin was soon learning about Joe Schmidt’s demands.
“I was carrying a hip injury and was watching training in Donnybrook,” said O’Loughlin.
“Joe came up and asked how the hip was, then said, ‘You need to know everything on that board [in the meeting room] on Monday. If you can’t run, you’re not coming.’ That set the tone for the tour, it was intense.”
O’Loughlin appreciated Keith Earls’ advice and insight on that tour, while making his debut against Japan alongside close friend Dan Leavy and another former St Michael’s team-mate Luke McGrath was special.
While O’Loughlin featured in a few more Ireland squads after that tour, he never got the chance to win another cap. He didn’t give up on the dream until recently enough.
“Even up until when I turned 28, I had played a lot for Leinster that season, it was a Lions year so guys were away,” he said. “When I didn’t get picked by Ireland then, I knew that was it.
“I don’t feel like I got that one cap and peaked there. I feel I got better but I was competing with world-class talent. The centres there – Bundee, Robbie, and Garry – they’re all 50-cap internationals.”
O’Loughlin’s versatility in playing at 11, 12, 13, and 14 was something that Leinster loved about him. It was hard to jump from position to position in the space of a week but he believes it was to his benefit and made him a better player overall.
He appreciates that it might not have made him the best outside centre he could have been, acknowledging that mastery of any position means spending as much time as possible there, but he wouldn’t change anything now.
“You’d always have family or friends telling you that you didn’t want to be in this flexible role. Someone mentioned Fergus McFadden and I was like, ‘If I had Fergus McFadden’s career, I would be absolutely delighted, it’s an unbelievable career.’
“Some people would tell me to focus on one position but if you’re that stubborn, you might not play.”
O’Loughlin was on the bench the last time Leinster won the Champions Cup in 2018 when they edged Racing 92 in Bilbao, with the province securing a double by claiming the Pro14 a week later.
It was a magical time to be part of Leinster, with Lancaster’s arrival to work alongside Leo Cullen having helped spark a brilliant era. O’Loughlin recalls how the Leinster academy hadn’t been fully integrated with the senior team before that but suddenly everyone was training together.
He feels Lancaster is the best coach he ever worked with, bringing hunger, energy, and knowledge into the environment, and flags how good a blend the Leinster squad had at that time, with younger players like James Ryan, Andrew Porter, Ringrose, and Leavy complementing world-class leaders such as Johnny Sexton, Isa Nacewa, and Scott Fardy.
O’Loughlin continued to be an important part of the squad all the way through until 2022 when he felt he had no choice but to move on.
“The reason I left was because Leinster were saying they didn’t have the money to pay me what I thought my value was,” he said.
Cullen had told him he might be disappointed with his contract offer and that proved the case as O’Loughlin was asked to take a 30% pay cut on a one-year deal. Cullen explained how Leinster’s model worked, with the need to keep developing young players and cut their cloth accordingly. He agreed to give O’Loughlin time to see what else was out there.
Initially, it looked like a move abroad might be difficult but O’Loughlin realised he was English-qualified again thanks to his mother being born there and the new World Rugby law meaning his Irish cap from 2017 no longer tied him to Ireland. All of a sudden, three English clubs wanted to talk but Exeter moved quickly.
While O’Loughlin was initially “pissed off” about Leinster offering him a reduced salary, he left on good terms after further discussions with Cullen and Lancaster.
And O’Loughlin is thankful that he got the chance to have a taste of life outside Leinster even if his second season in Exeter was ultimately the end.
“It was the best decision I ever made in terms of life experience. I’m so happy I did it. I’ve been talking to Ross Molony [who moved to Bath in the summer] and he’s loving it.
“It’s different… it’s not lonely but you learn to be on your own more. You grow up. I now see what it was like for foreigners to come into Leinster. Everyone has been there for years. It gives you an appreciation for that. Now if I’m in any environment, I’ll be very conscious to see if everyone is involved.”
That’s just one of the overlaps between rugby and other fields of work that O’Loughlin is starting to appreciate as he gets into the thick of his job hunt in Dublin.
He has been met with great encouragement from people working in business and sales, many of them stressing how valuable the high-performance knowledge gained as a pro rugby player can be in different fields.
Friends and family are naturally delighted to have him, Lisa, and Lily home and, mercifully, the shoulder isn’t causing problems. He can do most things as long as he steers clear of throwing himself into tackles like he did as a rugby player.
O’Loughlin has stayed involved in the game as backs coach for Bective Rangers where it all began when his father, Mick, convinced a shy nine-year-old to give rugby a go. It has been quite the journey since those days in Donnybrook. Now it’s onto the next chapter.
