Leinster Rugby v Dragons

“’Look, it is clearly never a drift (in
defence). You’ve left your shoulder open
on the inside.’
“’I see what you mean. Yeah, that is a
completely fair point.’”
In one short exchange, Schmidt had set
the table for what was to come.
“Sometimes you see someone make a
conscious effort to take down the big
dog. It wasn’t like that. It was just a super
fair, technical point you couldn’t argue
with.
“It was this shift into everyone seen
as equally accountable that changed
everything,” notes Paul.
O’Donohoe would move on to Connacht
to continue and, ultimately, conclude
his career, not before taking important
experiences that are central to his
working life today.
“I had a great bunch of mates in a
winning environment. It was a hard
decision to leave,” he shares.
“But, Ireland’s scrum-halves, Eoin Reddan
and Isaac Boss were ahead of me. I was
conscious of getting game time to break
into the Ireland squad or let rugby go.”
O’Donohoe was never going to stay on
and test the path of the journeyman.
“I had one really distinct memory from my
first year at Leinster. Mal O’Kelly was one
of the Harlem Globetrotters in the club.
I could barely talk to the lad when I first
graduated to the senior dressing-room. I
was so nervous.
“We ended up being great friends, so
much so that we ended up going on
holiday to South America at the end of
the 2009 season, a 20-year-old and a
35-year-old.
“It was the end of his contract and, just
like that, that was it for him, after all he
had done. It really struck a chord with
me.
“By the way, Mal had a very different
career trajectory to mine. I was never
going to stay in the game that long.”
A back issue may have accelerated the
process. He finished with rugby at 26.
There was no master plan in place. There
was just the intuition that I knew it was
time for something different.
“I never identified myself as a rugby nut.
That it was all I had. Yet, when you leave,
it is all people know you for.”
There was a period of recalibration,
finding a new way forward. It took one
or two years for O’Donohoe to navigate
that course.
“Along the way, there were many
mistakes and moments in offices I
prefer not to recount, from struggling
to put memory sticks into computers to
misunderstanding corporate-speak.
“It was very difficult at times. You had to
find out who you were, what made you
tick away from rugby.
“Your currency plummets. You go from
being in a job where you are valued -
people respect your opinion and work
ethic - to nothing.”
What he did have was two older
brothers, Matthew and Damien, who
worked in the media entertainment
industry.
He had access to a network of contacts
and moved to London to begin to climb
that ladder, eventually working his way
into the sports media rights space with
acquisition and distribution company
Pitch International for three years.
“It was a very aggressive learning curve
in a small, agile business,” he states.
“What I took with me from my days
at Leinster was that culture shift from
2007 to 2011, what it took to develop a
winning culture from something that was
not where it should have been.
“I still carry that special journey and
experience with me every day. It is a real
advantage in understanding what elite
professionalism requires.
“You do have to look after your
own house, police yourself, have the
emotional control, try to find the one per
cent progress.”
O’Donohoe moved into a new venture
with four partners, raising funds to set
up Greencastle Capital, the fund and
holding company for publishers JOE.ie,
HER.ie, HerFamily.ie, Lovin Media, The
London Economic.
“We had a specific investment remit
around digital media brands and
ancillary opportunities around them from
live events to development of new IP and
consumer products.”
In a fast-moving industry, O’Donohoe still
cherishes those experiences at Leinster
and uses many of them to chart his career
course.
www.leinsterrugby.ie | 65 | From The Ground Up