Illustrated History of Rugby Rebels, Role Models and Giant Killers (eBook)

IAN McKINLEY

The rugby player who overcame the loss of his eye to play Test rugby and helped open up the game to others who had been prevented from playing due to eye injuries or medical issues.

Main teams: UCD, Leinster, Viadana, Zebre Parma, Benetton, Barbarians, Ireland U20s, Italy

Position: Outside-half, centre

International caps: 9 (2017–19)

Points: 3 (1 penalty)

On 16 January, 2010, Ian McKinley was playing centre for University College Dublin (UCD) against Lansdowne in the All Ireland League Division Two. He was just out of his teens and part of the famed Leinster Academy system and had a promising future ahead of him as either a centre or outside-half, having already played a few games for the senior Leinster side. His world was to change completely within five minutes of kick-off.

Lying on his back in a ruck, a stray boot from a member of his own team caught him in the face and seriously injured his left eye. McKinley was rushed to hospital with a burst eyeball.

Over the coming months, the unlucky Irishman spent a long and difficult time having complex and risky operations to try and save his eye. When he wasn’t in hospital, he had to religiously follow strict medical advice on how to best help his eye recover.

One major consequence of McKinley’s injury was that his depth perception was affected. During his early days in hospital, he broke a glass of water when he completely misjudged its distance when he tried to pick it up. He effectively had to learn to recalibrate the way he perceived the world around him and it was three months before his vision had improved enough that his injured eye was able to see how many fingers his doctor was holding up during his frequent examinations.

It was another month again before McKinley was allowed to begin doing some light training. Before then there had been a major concern that too much movement or physical exercise could damage his retina. It’s fair to assume most people would have retired from rugby after such a terrible injury, but by the start of the 2010/11 season, with his left eye now having around 50 per cent vision, he began pre-season training with Leinster.

The first comeback

His condition didn’t stop some opponents from trying to take advantage or putting his sight at risk. In one game for Dublin club St Mary’s, McKinley prevented a player from taking a quick penalty and a scuffle broke out. Another opponent came from behind and dug his finger into McKinley’s good right eye. If that wasn’t bad enough, the thug admitted that he knew McKinley had a severely damaged left eye and that was why he had done it.

In February 2011, McKinley was back playing for Leinster and even picked up a player of the match award and scored a try in a game against Benetton. By May he had done enough to be offered his first senior professional contract and had regained about 70 per cent vision in his injured eye. But then, disaster struck. Playing for Leinster A, McKinley had to leave the match as his vision began to rapidly deteriorate. It turned out he had developed a complicated cataract and needed surgery.

Worse news was to follow: not long after this incident, his retina became detached and he needed yet another emergency operation. It was not a success. Doctors told McKinley that the damage was too great and his eye could not be saved.

At the age of 21, McKinley announced his retirement from the sport. He had played six times for Leinster and been capped for the Ireland U20s, even captaining the latter in a game in the 2009 Junior World Championship. At such a young age his rugby dreams seemed to be over.

Yet, unbelievably, his elite career had actually barely even started. Not only would he lace his boots up again, he would be part of a campaign that would change rugby forever.

The second comeback

In 2013, McKinley got an unexpected offer that would alter the course of his life. He had begun coaching in Dublin after hanging up his boots and was also studying sports management at university. Out of the blue, he got a phone call asking if he would be interested in moving to Italy to become technical director of Leonorso Rugby Udine, overseeing teams in the under-6 to under-20s age range. He quickly accepted the challenge.

But while the move abroad and winning a job within the sport he loved initially helped McKinley, he eventually had to admit he had not coped well mentally with his enforced retirement from playing. Things got so bad, he broke down in front of his brother, Philip, and admitted he was in a bad place mentally as he still wanted to play rugby but was not able to.

Philip decided to help and contacted some people he knew to try and see if there was any way that his brother could play again through the use of special protective goggles. In his autobiography, Second Sight, Ian wrote that, within a week, Philip sent him an email which said: ‘I’ve been reflecting a great deal since last week, about our conversation about your ambition to play again. I keep coming back though to two things: Risk and Limitation.’

The email discussed the concept of trying to find a way to use modern technology to create special eye protection that would permit him to play again. It continued: ‘You are down and desperately frustrated at being unable to play. So, it’s a lose/lose situation from whatever way you look at it. However, if you were to return, you would reverse all that. You would be an inspiration to tens of thousands of young people, you would be able to deliver on the skills and development invested in you and you would no longer feel the frustration you do. It would become win/win … at the end of the day, it’s the love of mud, scraped knees and sticking to diets that you miss the most. So your desire and request are not selfish or egotistical, it is in fact good, heart-warming pure love for the sport, which any rugby fan or authority should respond most openly and positively towards.’

With Philip leading the charge, the pair began researching everything from eyewear technology to changes in international rugby laws and regulations to see if they could find a way. They also contacted the mechanical engineering department at UCD, Ian’s old university, and the technical department at World Rugby (then the International Rugby Board) to begin exploring how they could make working prototypes of protective goggles. As it happened, World Rugby was also in the very early stages of looking into whether it was possible to create goggles for rugby players who had a medical condition that meant they needed to protect their eyes.

It was to be the beginning of a long, difficult, inspiring and ultimately successful journey. By early 2014, World Rugby had agreed that a trial of goggles in rugby could take place and McKinley had a working prototype made from an incredibly strong polycarbonate material to try out. They weren’t perfect and there were plenty of issues to iron out, but it was a start. After successfully training with them at Leonorso, McKinley was selected to play in a match for the club against Oderzo. The teams played in division three of the Italian leagues and the standard and facilities were a world away from what he had previously known in Ireland. But none of that mattered. All that mattered was whether the goggles worked.

They did. Despite an early hiccup when his goggles came off in contact, the Leonorso debutant bagged 28 points in a 65–5 win. McKinley was able to feed back on the good and bad things he had experienced with the goggles and the technicians working on them could begin to refine things such as the way they fogged up or how insecure they were. It was later discovered that up to 10 degrees of vision on McKinley’s left side was obscured by the goggles and it would be a long time before this problem was rectified.

The Irishman was soon signed on a professional contract for the 2014/15 season by Rugby Viadana, another Italian club, but one which sat at the top table of the domestic game.

Mai Mular (Never give up)

The more McKinley played, the more attention was drawn to the goggles and the potential they had to help others. In a twist of fate, McKinley discovered that Florian Cazenave – a former French opponent of his from his days with Ireland U20s – had also suffered the loss of an eye and was not allowed to play in his native France. He too came to play in Italy and used goggles to protect his sight. The pair even met in a pre-season friendly.

In 2014 McKinley was invited to play for the prestigious Barbarians invitational side – becoming the first player to do so of course while wearing eye protection. By the 2015/16 season, McKinley had also begun playing for Rugby Zebre on permit, helping out when their top players were away on international duty. It was another significant sign of his progress and the first time goggles had been worn at this level of rugby.

For all the technological and technical improvements made to his eyewear though, McKinley still had to relearn how to do many of the things on the field that would have been second nature to him before his injury. As a left-footed kicker, for instance, he had to adapt the way his body was positioned when he kicked as he no longer had a clear view of the ball as it dropped onto his foot.

Rain of course was another...