My Life in Rugby: Tony Buckley – former Munster, Sale and Ireland prop

Up to the age of 16 my shoe size correlated with my age, meaning I had to have rugby boots specially made for me in Germany. I missed about six weeks of the season once because someone swiped my kit bag with them inside and I didn’t have any spares that fitted me!
Missing large chunks of rugby – through illness and injury – was something that unfortunately happened throughout my career but to get the chance to play for Munster and Ireland was the stuff of dreams.
I played second row until I was about 18 and was good enough to play representative schoolboy rugby for Leinster. But it was a year spent at Connacht as a ‘project prop’ that put me on the radar of Munster.
To be playing alongside some of the players I’d watched as a fan only a few years earlier was amazing.
The closest I had got to them before was as a member of the Thomond Park ‘Streaker Squad’ – local club players who’d act as stewards on match days with the remit of removing any pitch invaders. We were under strict instructions to get any blokes off the pitch as quickly as possible but to take our time if it was a good-looking woman!
Despite losing badly to a Dan Parks-inspired Glasgow on my competitive debut, I was very fortunate to play for Munster when I did as we became one of the biggest forces in European rugby.
One highlight was being part of the 2008 Heineken Cup-winning squad. Getting the losing bonus point we needed at Clermont Auvergne to qualify for the knockout stages is something I’ll always remember, there was such joy in the dressing room afterwards, and then there was the final itself, against Toulouse. Ordinarily I wasn’t normally nervous before games but I was for that one.
The Heineken Cup winner’s medal is one of my most prized possessions but I very nearly had it stolen from me after a burglary at my mother’s house. They’d rifled through every drawer apart from the bottom one where it was kept.
I won 25 caps for Ireland, the first against Argentina in far-flung Sante Fe. Fortunately, my dad was able to fly out to see me, and I think I did pretty well against the formidable loosehead Marcos Ayerza. It was certainly a surreal experience. The fans were very vociferous and still managed to throw stuff at us despite being behind 20-foot cages.
Personally, my favourite game for Ireland was against New Zealand in New Plymouth in 2010. It may seem strange to pick out a 66-28 defeat but the way we kept playing, despite being reduced to 14 men after 15 minutes when Jamie Heaslip was sent off, was something that stays with me. I got my hands on the ball a lot, managed quite a few offloads, and even had a little run down the wing. Ronan O’Gara was yellow-carded in the final quarter, meaning we finished the game with 13 men. Even so, we still managed to score more points against New Zealand than any other Irish team.
I returned to New Zealand for the World Cup the following year, scoring a try against Russia. But that was me done in terms of international rugby. The IRFU withdrew the contract offer they’d made me just before Christmas, after I’d been struggling with a really bad bout of glandular fever. To do what they did, especially as my wife was very ill at the time, was very disappointing and insensitive to say the least.
Then Sale came in for me and I was assured by Ireland that It wouldn’t affect my chances of selection. A week later they rung me to say I was ninth-choice behind players who, without being cocky, I felt weren’t fit to tie my boot laces, and some New Zealand guy they’d flown in. I ended up with five fewer caps than my wife Elaine (nee Collins), below. She reminds me of that almost every day.
I was Steve Diamond’s first signing on his return to Sale but if you asked him now who his number one signing was, I know it wouldn’t be me. My first year went quite well but after that it was all downhill. Plenty of coaches came and went and I had a long spell out with injury.
Towards the end of the second year I took a shoulder to my kneecap and the impact broke my femur. I had to have micro surgery to break it back again. The pain was hellish and never left me. My family and I were counting down the days until we could return to Ireland and I managed to secure an early release. I had a spell of counselling while I was at Sale because I was so down about it all.
The mental well-being of players is something I’m interested in – hence my loose involvement with a charity called State of Mind Rugby. After falling out of love with the game the desire to play is slowly returning and I’ve registered to play with my former club Shannon – if I can find any boots that fit me; our puppy has eaten most of them.
*As told to Jon Newcombe