Decoded - Career Paths Translated: This season of Decoded is brought to you by Morgan Walsh Consulting, supporting businesses and their leaders at moments of transformation or scale. For more information and services, head over to MorganWalshConsulting.ie. In 1995, I did my junior cert and I got one of the lowest, most embarrassing set of results. And I'm not saying it as a joke, I think of it now. It was the greatest wake up call I ever got. Like, so when all my friends were going home in the evening, second and third year, saying, oh, I didn't do a tap of study. I literally wasn't. I had a very poor work ethic in school. I needed to grow up and caught myself on and figure out what were the subjects I liked, be mature enough to try and dust myself down and trying to figure out what I'm going to do here because the next three years were going to be a real struggle if I didn't get my head screwed in. I'm Laura Morgan-Walch and you're listening to Decoded, the podcast where we translate our guests career path. What were their CAO choices? What part of their career journey would they go back and change? What's the good, the bad, the perks and the boring parts of their role? And how will their role be influenced by AI in the future? My guest this week is Head of Communications for the IRFU, Peter Breen. Peter's career story is one of twists and turns, fueled by a passion to work at the highest level of sport and underpinned by a strong work ethic. and an ability to cultivate relationships. I caught up with Peter shortly after the Irish team's Triple Crown victory from this year's Six Nations Championship to translate the career path that took him from covering local leagues to supporting high performance teams at international level. Here's our chat. I hope you enjoy. Peter Breen, head of communications for the IRFU, you are most welcome to Decoded. Thank you very much, Laura. Good to be here. I think I mentioned to you off air that... when I thought about this podcast and reaching out to people with interesting careers and understanding how they got where they got to. You were one of the first people that I had in mind. So I'm absolutely thrilled to have you here. But I mean, we can't go any further than how you have spent the last month. I need you to talk to me about that unbelievable Six Nations Championship where Ireland walked away with the Triple Crown. Yeah, thanks very much. Like, it's great to be here firstly and ⁓ The last month has been great. I've been very lucky. I've been working with the RFU since 2022. So, but my role with the senior team started in 2023 and I've been very lucky that ever since then, every year the team has won something. So I'd love to claim credit, unfortunately I can't. I didn't score a try, kick a goal, make a tackle, but no, but it's brilliant. And I think it's very special, truthfully, when you're working with your country at such a brilliant era with great people, ⁓ between the playing staff, coaching staff, the wider management, the great group. And then not to mention, or not to forget my colleagues in the RFU office. So there's people there who are making sure the wheels are moving smoothly right across loads of different departments. I think one of the great things about working in communications is that you kind of straddle all different departments at different times. So That could be from operations to medical to ticketing to refereeing to HR or whatever else. So it's really interesting role, good people. And thankfully it's been a really good era and I feel very lucky to be a part of it. the last month has been brilliant as well. Going back to your question and obviously culminated in the Triple Crown win on what was nearly a great Super Saturday. It was still a very good Saturday and we were one one kick away from winning the title, but it was, it certainly adds a bit of fuel to the fire, I think, in terms of what's coming up this summer over the next year, 18 months for the World Cup in Australia as well. think it definitely will keep that motivation as high as it's ever been for everyone. And hopefully we'll learn lessons from what has been a largely new squad, really, when you look at the players who've come through in the last year or more, and as well, allied to those who, who have served Ireland so well over many years. So we're in good shape, but hopefully in a position to go further over the next year or two. I think that's what made it so exciting as well, was seeing new names put on jerseys, or new to us, maybe as the viewing public, ⁓ and come on and make such an impression and, you know, inspire the small people that are in my sitting room watching it with us. You know, I think it's, it was an amazing couple of weeks. And it's funny how you talked about all the different departments that are involved and it's a machine that sits behind the guys and the girls that go out and put jerseys on for the IRFU. There seems to be a massive machine behind it. But I'd love to understand, for a Six Nations Champion, what does your day to day look like? No two days are the same. The pattern of the week largely stays the same in that you have a sense of building and planning and whatever else. But on a typical match home week, Tuesday is my busiest day of the week. Um, because we've media, you could have things like match programs need the signing off. And not to mention other meetings and day to day things that happened that were all, we all have it in all of our lives and different problems that crop up from time to time and, and whatever else. But, but typically Monday, what was sorry, my, my working week would start with planning. If there was a match on the previous Saturday, the Sunday, you're kind of planning your, your, in my own head, I'm working ahead. what I need from the week, what we need to deliver in terms of broadcasters and whatnot, in terms of what our media output would be, in terms of what news story might be emerging. It could be around returning players, injured players, et cetera. And then the coordination of some of our media activities across the week. So I think it's been an interesting one actually, Oara, because over the last number of months, we've had a lot of transition year students who come in and help us to do a brilliant job during the week. So I often find myself talking through my day and talking through my week and explaining what we do and why we do it. And it sounds like I have an overinflated sense of importance around it. But I'm interested in it. And I can remember when I was 16 and I was a student, I had no clue what I wanted to do. I knew it wasn't going to be good enough to play for Ireland or play sport at a high level. But I knew that I love sport. knew that I loved dealing with people. I knew that I love writing and And then just in a fortuitous way, I kind of found a career path that I'm really enjoying. So when I think back on my working week, a lot of it is planning, but it's so enjoyable and it's nearly the anxiety that gets you through. It's the anxiety that really motivates you because I tend to naturally have quite a pessimistic is the wrong word, but I've quite a... I try to have quite a balanced viewpoint of how the day might go and what issues might crop up from time to time. And I think a big part of my job is trying to foresee them, not to try and spin it, but just to manage it and just to help people. Like that's my role. Like when you cut it down to everything, it's just about trying to foresee challenges, be as proactive as possible, but also to be as reactive as well. And then so on a typical working day, anything that there's no such thing as a typical working day. is there is a pattern. And we could be doing media, we could do in charity events. We could have to do one of our commercial partners. We could do something outside of that, your own kind of internal planning or else. But it's just it's all different challenges and different things that kind of motivates you. Well, motivates me. I don't know if I'm going for punishment or whatever, but it is interesting. You had me as anxiety. It sounds like my kind of thing. But, you know, you're also surrounded by high performing athletes, right? And you're surrounded by a high performance team that are responsible for high performing athletes. What would surprise people about working in that kind of an environment? How do you think that influences you? How normal everyone is. How, you know, when you're young, you put athletes, you put coaches, you put high profile people on such a pedestal. I suppose how obviously talented, how empathetic, how driven, how motivated, how inspirational they are. I mean, you get to know them on a personal level. You get to realize that the people behind the athlete or the high profile person. But I suppose it won't shock people to learn that they work extremely hard. But what I've always found, I've looked into working sport for, oh God, old am I now? 20, 25 years of working in professional sport. And I've always found the highest profile and the highest achieving athletes, coaches, mentors, whatever you want to call them, to be the most normal, tend to be the most comfortable in their own skin. And I certainly find that obviously these kind of relationships are built on trust. You'd hope that There's goodwill both ways. And if you try and do right by people, like you're not always going to make friends 100 % of the time. But if you try and have a core principle of doing the right thing and helping people and being available and being accessible and imparting a bit of your own wisdom, a bit of your own experience that people recognize that. And certainly I've always found that in challenging times when there have been instances either in your personal life or professional life, even within this role, the goodness of the people has shone through every time. And there's not stuff specifically you talk about a forum like this, but I could genuinely speak on matters on things that players or coaches wouldn't dream they'd be mortified had ever got into the public domain of the kindest two strangers, of the kindness. and the decent way of behaving and understanding their position and their duty, nearly their responsibility to do the right thing, to represent Ireland. ⁓ You know, everyone makes mistakes and whatnot, but I think there is an inherent goodness there as well as an inherent talent and an inherent desire to achieve and to deliver. And I suppose so the one thing you learn is they're the same as you and I. You know, we go back to that word. This is like an anxiety podcast, but no, everyone's got doubts. Everyone has good days, bad days. And there is a great sense of collegiality. And I suppose I look at the operations team and people might realize when you're breaking into sports, God, what does an operations person do? Like, how do you get from A to B? How do you plan training facilities? How do you plan transport, hotels, the best food? are nutritionists the role that Emma Gardner plays in that? ⁓ allied to the best medical care that the players get to make sure that they're upright and on the field every week from physios to doctors to sports scientists, masseurs, the role they play nearly as counselors and all the hours of players would spend on benches trying to get their bodies right mentally, physically from one week to the other. it's both working in an environment you can see what everyone does. Everyone has a role. You have to work hard. You know, you have to Everyone takes great pride in what they do and ⁓ yeah, and everyone is valued. And I think that's something that's driven from the top down. think someone like Andy Farrell ⁓ puts great weight on that, on the idea that people look out for each other, take responsibility for your area, work hard and support each other really. that's all about trying to... playing your own little role to make sure that the players can deliver the best performance. Now, as I said, I'm not that conceited where I would say that I have a hands-on role in that. think you look at coaches and, you know, the hours of meticulous planning they spent in analysis and things like that and meetings and trying to get that 1 % extra the whole time. But I suppose it all feeds into the machine, as you mentioned earlier. Yeah, but it's a very good environment, though. It's a very positive environment. And the biggest thing is that everyone to be themselves. So you want to have that bit of personality, bit of crack, knowing when to get your head screwed on, knowing when to release a bit of pressure. ⁓ everyone, I suppose everyone brings their own themselves rather than trying to be well, the expression that's used is the best version of themselves. But for many years, I didn't really know what that meant. But it is very much about ⁓ being yourself and because you you be yourself and you certainly don't want this stage in your life to pass you by and you kind of go, God, why was I so tired all the time? Why wasn't I myself? Why was I so full of anxiety and so full of worry? know, so it's something I know we're talking about sports specifically, but I think it's something that's transferable into other industries as well. That's what's screaming at me. To be honest, the best cultures that I worked in in any organization. had those fundamentals that are so comparable to sports. So everyone comes as themselves and is accepted. Everyone contributes. Everyone looks after their part of the jigsaw. They are held accountable to it. They are responsible for it. And everyone then takes pride in doing it. And I think, you know, as a leader in organizations, I always felt that my job was to just move things out of the way so that people could do that. So that you could let people shine. And I think there's so many comparisons with... strong high performing sports teams that equate to strong high performing organizations or teams with an organization. I think it's very, very important. And it's one of the reasons why I think it's so important to keep kids, but especially girls, because they're dropping out at a higher rate, but to keep kids in sport for as long as you can, because it doesn't really matter for me about the level you play at, but for the length of time you play at, you learn these things. You learn how to... win with grace, lose with grace. You learn how to play your part. You learn that what you're doing is valuable. So you've touched on all of those things that I think are comparable across so many different topics of conversation. We could talk for hours. But I think, Peter, you mentioned there about a very strong sense you had at an early age that you wanted to be involved in sport. You loved sport. Sadly, you came to realization that at no stage, or is this going to be your full time job? All my friends will look back and go, you were brutal. You know, gnarly. No, but you're right. It's just a passion though. You know, it doesn't matter what your level is. You just find a level and retain and build a passion in something. Like be the most passionate street cleaner in the world. Be the most passionate doctor in the world. Be the most passionate teacher, lawyer. It doesn't matter. Just be, do what you love doing. and build on it and put the hours in. yeah, like when I first started in college, really going back to 1998 when I did my leave insert, like this career path wasn't really there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So tell me, just tell me about that, that point. If I was to bring you back to 17, 18 year old Peter and you're staring at a CAO form going, right, okay, it's crunch time. Need to make a decision here. I like you say that career path that you now have wasn't available on the page. So what did you decide to do? Well, I'll take it back a year previously. So in 1995, I did my junior search and I got one of the lowest, most embarrassing set of results. And I'm not saying it as a joke. I think of it now, it was the greatest wake up call I ever got. Like, so when all my friends were going home in the evening, second and third year, saying, Oh, I didn't do a tap of study. I literally wasn't. And the proof of the pudding was in. I got four C's, five D's and an E, right? And I remember science. And then I met a science teacher. So I feel like, mean, forever punished. No, but look, was humbling at the time to the point of like, I had a very poor work ethic in school. And I was in a really good school. was in Belvedere college and my parents had worked really hard to get us there. And I just felt the sense of growing. needed to grow up and caught myself on and figure out what were the subjects I liked, be mature enough to try and dust myself down and trying to figure out what I'm going to do here because the next three years were going to be a real struggle if I didn't get my head screwed in. So by the time I got to fourth year, some people have said transition year, it's a bit of a waste of time. You know, she goes straight to fifth year. I am such an advocate for transition year because it was changed my life. We had new and I mean, not just my career, my my educational trajectory, my whole career trajectory, because ⁓ we knew teachers of different subjects who ignite a bit of a fire, who see something in you. had an English teacher who since passed called Jerry Hall, who who really motivated me to focus in on English. I remember that Christmas exam. All of a sudden I went from a D student to the top in the class. I got 96 % and I was really proud of that. And I was kind of going, I didn't know how that happened. And I suppose a huge amount of it was down to him. And that gives you confidence. And so all of a sudden, having gone from whatever it was, August, or I think it was September when we got the results in the junior cert, I've gone from the bottom of the pack feeling like a real dunce, feeling like a real ⁓ my God, where do I fit in here to all of a sudden? Hang on. I've got something here I'm good at. So I need to make sure I keep on working at that because there is something there. Same thing happened in history, French. I was never top of the class in other subjects, but I just knew that actually if I worked, there we go, if I worked hard, I would get somewhere. So, but it was one of most important lessons I learned. by the time I sat down for my CAO, ⁓ I put down arts and UCD because my brother had studied it and he'd said, look, it gives you a bit of variety. If you're not 100 % sure what you want to do, art is a great degree for that because you've to look, you like English, you like history. You might want to get into politics. You might want to study, you know, things like psychology, sociology, whatever it is. So he said, give yourself a bit of room. I thought I was determined that I was going to do journalism at DCU, but I had that lower down the choices. So, so for me, I kind of went. When I did leave Uncertain, got the points actually for journalism, was like, I can't do it now. I've already gone for arts, but it was the best thing that happened for me just personally, even though a lot of really talented students who I know who would have been my peers in terms of age group who actually went on or are now editors and all across sports and news and politics, et cetera, have gone on to brilliant, brilliant careers. It just suited me and I studied English and history. I got involved in the local newspaper in the college Tribune in UCD. was a sports editor for a time. Again, build a bit of confidence. ⁓ One of your little victories when you're a journalist is when you can see your name in writing, certainly in the early days. but it just gives you a sense of accomplishment for a moment. And then the challenge of the journalists is you need to keep on getting a new story the next day. So it's like work. It's like. It's like any career really, you you can dwell on it for a moment and then you turn the page really quickly and move on. But I really that's how I got into it. I ignited a love of writing. ⁓ I kind of found early then that journalism wasn't for me, even though I loved writing, because I just didn't like the, I loved the idea that you could be paid to send off to cover sports all around the world and all around the UK and Ireland and stuff. I didn't like the. I didn't really like the environment of journalism, to be perfectly honest. I like journalists, you know, I like understanding how things and idea can go from your head to your paper to the world, you know, and and I love that and telling a story and, you know, really drilling down into meeting people and learning from people. But I just didn't like aspects of journalism. But all of a sudden, very quickly, then I left college. I was working in bank and I was working in different industries. I worked in a summer job in the aviation for three years through my brother Mark got me involved in the airline called Transair. It's just the operations department. But again, you're picking up different things all the time, you know, and and how of how industries work. then I kind of got to a stage at the end of my college career. OK, what am I going to do next? So I was very lucky by the time 2003 came along. I kind of jacked in my job in a bank. It was quite a funny one, probably a bit ballsy now when I say it, but it wasn't. I really didn't know what I was doing, but I remember my boss called me in on a Monday and said, listen, you seem really unhappy. Is everything okay at home? And I was like, yeah, yeah, it's grand. I said, look, to be perfectly honest, I don't like my job. I said, I appreciate it and I'll work hard. And like you're waiting at five to five. you know, for the bell to get to five. And ⁓ I kind of said, look, I really want to get into journalism or I want to get into writing at the time. And he said, OK, well, look, give it a week. Come in and chat to me on Friday and see how you are. says you shouldn't stay in something that you don't want to stay in. But equally, I need people here who motivated and passionate. And I said, I completely get that. That's a really adults conversation to have, isn't it? It really was. Yeah, he was a very, because I don't think it was his passion in terms of what he was doing. He was like a department head, but But he kind of got it because I was honest with him and he was honest with me. And he said, look, I don't want to do this forever either. But when you're here, you need to be fully motivated. And that's perfectly fine. And I suppose because I respected him that I said it to him. on the Friday, I handed in my notice and he said, no problem at all. Best of luck. I mean, while on the Thursday, the day before I got a phone call, say there was a new newspaper starting up. Could you come in for a chat on the Monday? Which I did. So. If you can imagine how uncertain that weekend was. Meanwhile, I'd said nothing to my parents either because they would have killed me handing my notice for a job that I didn't have. So I kind of just backed myself, prepared. I met a guy called Declan O'Brien, who was the sports editor of the Dublin Daily that had just started up. Karl Durvin, who would have had an illustrious career in journalism at that time and writing. He was one of the founders with Liam Hayes. Liam Hayes was a former, well, a publisher, great renowned, but he was a former meat footballer who's, and they started up this newspaper. They didn't know me from Adam really. And they kind of just said, okay, well look, you're passionate about it. And a bit of interest in rugby. I'd written a lot on the thing, all independent. That's how I kind of increased my experience. On a Sunday evening, I used to go and do a shift. So at least you had a bit of a bank of work you could show people, you know. So you were you were plugging away with the thing all independent while you were in the job that wasn't necessarily lighting your fire, but was was paying the bills. Yeah. Until you were found out. Yeah. Like, well, it was a great one because I lived in Swords. I wasn't getting paid by the thing all independent. And I was kind of, you know, I was kind of said, this is really sustainable. But but little was I did I realize what I was learning every evening, every Sunday evening. You're ringing around local football teams. You're trying to get a reaction to a result. You know, you're nearly become a part psychologist, you know, because we had instances where a football coach was just like progressively, was his team were getting worse and worse every week. he'd be like he would have had a pint or two in the clubhouse. He'd always take the call. And I said, listen, how did it get on today? What happened? You lost four nil or whatever. And he, know, he'd need counseling. So got to the stage where I'd speak to him and I just said, I can't file that. Like I'm going to hang the guy. So I rang him back the next morning early. I said, listen. And he said, thanks so much. So we'd have a more mature, considered roundup of the day's events. But that's honing your craft, isn't it? It is. You know, that's all just doing the yards that you need to in a job that you know you're not going to keep at. But meanwhile. still plugging away, learning as you go and almost filtering out what you don't like, what you do like so that you can get closer and closer to where you want to land. And if it's any consolation, mean, you know, appearing in the Fingal Independent was the highlight of the Morgan household. Let me tell you, there are scrapbooks upon scrapbooks of cutouts from the Fingal Independent, whether it was the school teams or Rush. or, you know, if you were in drama in the mill bank, it didn't matter what it was, you know, you'd arrived. So it's not to be sniffed at either. And it sounds like it was just a really important kind of university of where you were to get to. you see, it was hugely important for me on a practical term, as I said, it was the local newspaper in Swords. And as you said, covered the whole Fingal region. So I would have played Gaelic and cricket and football and rugby and everything within these local malahide swords, et cetera. also my family on my father's side, O'Donoghues had founded the Draught Independent. I even subconsciously, I had realized the importance of local newspapers. And as you said, it does build local profiles. is, they are cheerleaders and champion local heroes and local stories and stuff. So one of the principles that I've always taken or tried to throughout my life, particularly in the role that I'm in in terms of communications and PR is actually everything begins locally. And to make sure that you could try and champion those local heroes, male, female, in and out of the field of play and whatever else as well. Because I just think obviously national media is so critically important. International media is hugely important, but local media, everything starts there. It starts and ends there. and local media and that's not just newspapers, it's radio, ⁓ it's photographers, it's everything. They have such a huge role in terms of giving even people the confidence and I mean athletes as well, the confidence to shine and everything like that. no, was a really important sounding block. I actually worked with Shane Castles, who has gone on to be a TD. Shane was the editor or was he the sports editor? think it was the editor at the time. But on a Sunday evening shift and your payment would be a bag of chips and he'd go down and do the bag of chips run at about half eight in the evening. But it was great. And you go in at I think six o'clock till about half nine, ten, wander down the road and you'd have sent some compliments, as you said, when the paper came out on Wednesday or Thursday. And and you don't realize, I suppose, what you're learning, you know, week in, week out. And that's the thing I would say to young people is like hone your craft, but also, you know, you're not going to land in your dream job. Some people it takes a lifetime. Some people are luckier. It's, you know, can take happening in the shortest space of time. But, but if you're really passionate about something like do the voluntary work, you know, ring around and you'd be surprised to how helpful people would be. People will always are good people and the best leaders in my view. are those who will kind of recognize intent and recognize passion in someone else and try and cultivate it as well. Because I've had that my whole way through. ⁓ I would have worked when I first wanted to get my name in print. My dad was involved with Sharon Mcgrovers with father John. And so I got, he got me writing in the, in the Sharon Mcgrovers match program. Then a couple of times through his pal, Eddie Cox, who worked in the FAI at the time, got me to write for the Irish national team program. So like, it's a real buzz. Five people might be reading your article. It didn't matter. You know, it didn't matter. Even my family wouldn't read it half the time. No, but it does. It's all about building that confidence. And I think that that's such a role now. I'm 46 and I look at young people who come in on different placements and things like that. And God, you'd love to just instill that sense of confidence in them, you know, and to tell them things would be OK, you know. you know, as a spoiler alert for this season of the podcast is that, you know, careers are not won and lost on the CAO front. Yeah. And they're certainly not. built or broken in your first couple of jobs. There is a path to be trodden. There's a way of figuring out and I'm hoping through these conversations, that's what's going to emerge for people is that, you know, the path to confidence is in doing. That's what you need to do. You need to get out and do. But you certainly did your fair bit of doing. You went from that role into like different sports as well. You diversified. Yeah. So, kind of again, going back to a voluntary position and the reason why I keep on mentioned in these voluntary positions is, you know, there can be sometimes an area of expectation with people. ⁓ well, I'm not working for nothing and I'm going to be made a mogul or whatever. No, the worst thing you'll get is something on your CV that will actually stand out to a future and your next employer. And that was certainly the case with me. So I worked with the, I was the PRO for the Irish cricket union as it was called then. And then that kind of led into my job with Lensure rugby. And I was there with Lensure rugby for about 10 and a half years. So by the time I left Lensure, I had kind of worked in sport for a long time and I needed a change. So before I got the job with the International Cricket Council in Dubai, I actually completely diversified and went to work for an animal welfare charity, the DSPCA, that has subsequently changed its name. Now, I think it's the NSPCA maybe or whatever, but They did incredible work and I loved it. I was only there six months. But three months into that, I got contacted by the Interactric Council in Dubai. They said, look, with senior ZV, would you be interested in this role in the media department? And I had lived abroad. I hadn't done a J1 that a lot of my friends had. As I mentioned, the three years that... I was in college and friends are going off to Chicago, Windy City in New York and San Fernando and whatever else. I stayed at home, worked, had a few bob, meant that I didn't have to work through college as well because you were saving. So, ⁓ but on the other side of it, I hadn't had that world experience and whatever else. So, by the time Dubai came around, I was 34, a good age to move to a country I didn't know. And it was a brilliant opportunity to follow a sport that I loved ⁓ and to try and understand an international level with a World Cup coming up in Australia and New Zealand, how kind of a huge mammoth sport like that worked and operated. I loved my time there. The chance to see the world is always a real bonus. And I had an opportunity then to work for one of the franchise leagues, the Caribbean Premier League. And that allowed me to kind of come back to Ireland and spend a lot of my time of the year here. So that kind of led to the next spell in my career where I did a bit of consultancy or worked for a sport consultancy and really enjoyed it. Loved the variety of it, but also realized, I suppose, that when you have any kind of a background or experience in sports, that actually it's a privilege. And if it's something that motivates you and inspires you every morning to get up and you're not dreading your job the night before, like that's a privilege. And so I'm glad I took every decision I did. Some things worked out better than others, but like I wouldn't change anything either. Every experience you've had ⁓ leads you to where you are now, you know? Absolutely. Is there anything you would have changed about not traveling when you were in college or? A bit of wanderlust. I probably wouldn't have got that job. without the experiences that had got me to the interview stage. Because that was something that was remarked for them. ⁓ we see you did this. We see you were there for a long period. So it's kind of what ifs. The one thing from my school days that I would have absolutely would have done, I should have stuck with accountancy. I feel that as a subject and in terms of something that you would take true for your life. Like I was terrible at numbers. I was bad at maths. So the basic sums, but But actually, that would have been a really important subject to and something that could be, yeah, between taxation, profit and loss, balance and family accounts, balancing whatever else as well. Just in terms of a practical, practical subject, I would have loved to kept on with that. But but also in the last year or two, I've kind of got back into screening and things with college and do more courses and stuff like that. And I'm lucky with the IRFU, they're very supportive around not just me, everyone has the opportunity to do supplementary courses and diplomas and hopefully time masters and things like that as well. But they're very big on that. And I wish I'd gotten back into that ladder sooner because my brothers ⁓ were big on that. And it's probably a bit of laziness and probably busy. I have lot going on. It's no excuse. know, never ever give up your education. Yeah, I think continuous learning is something that is a pattern through everyone that I have spoken to. And at some stage, whether it's continuous learning through your career or as you say, you hit a notion that says, actually, now is the time. I need to go back. I need to supplement what I have with the dictionary. It hits everyone, it seems to at different times. It's funny, you can get different roles, you can get different promotions, but if you're not learning. Yeah. What's the point? So in order for you to continue to play your part and be the best that you can be, you have to keep raising that bar. Now, that doesn't mean necessarily you have to do a course. It can be through listening to podcasts and it can be through talking to people and getting out there. There's loads of different ways of doing it. But it's interesting that you bring that up because that is a pattern. 100%. And as I said, my other brother, Alan, would have been hot on it as well. And I was kind of looking at him. He's been involved in sport and coaching and he works at the Dublin. Ladies football's team at the moment and he's got a young family and all this kind of stuff. And I'm kind of going, well, if he can make time, I don't have to, you know, I have no excuse, know, and, it's inspiring as well. And it's, you know, you can make all the excuses in the world for not doing something. If you're passionate about it, you can siphon a couple of hours a week away and, it stands to you. me every job has the good, the bad and the boring. So, Oven. average Tuesday, said Tuesday was would be your busiest day leading up to a Six Nations match, but of an average Tuesday, what is the boring bit of your job that, you know, there's boring bits in every job and it's just to be transparent about it? Yeah. There's other boring parts of the week. I tell you, the toughest part of the week and the most boring part of the week isn't on the Tuesday. The Tuesday is actually you're full of adrenaline and As I said, we've got our big media day and there's meetings going on and you know, you're kind of up the walls a bit and you know, you're trying to make sure that you've got your ducks in a row and you've got your planning done. The worst part of the week is the, the morning or, or the couple of hours before a match, everyone is, you're just waiting. You're waiting to leave the hotel. You're waiting to get, once you get to the ground, there's a kind of a flurry of media roles that I have to do with players or coaches or whatever else. And then there's an hour in that period where nothing's going on. You're literally, standing, you don't know whether to stand by the side of a pitch or stand in the tunnel or whatever. And the hour just drags and the team are doing their thing. And you're just at ⁓ the height of nerves and the height of tensions. And it's so exciting and it's so terrifying. Look, what level of control really do any of us have in any of our lives really? But certainly at that moment, you know, whatever would be, would be at that point and the rains could come down and things could change or you get a bad decision and that impacts then how your week is going to look the following week. Now, luckily, we've got a pretty mature group in that, you know, in victory, defeat, we try and stay fairly even teal all the way along and not get too high or not get too low. But I wear my I wear my nerves. probably pretty badly, you know, I think I think some of the lads who are far cooler and calmer than me get great joy out of my suffering and my torture and torment, particularly on a Tuesday. But you know, I say that in jest because I love it and it motivates you, doesn't it? It kind of gives you that sense of adrenaline as well. yeah. You can feel that sense of pride, though. Like I'm there with you at the moment on the side of the bitch going, right. Nothing to do, nothing to do, nothing to do but sit and wait, absolute torture. But very like it's so exciting and anything to do with live sport. Yeah, I always think it's such a privilege to be there and to see the people who are best at what they do, do what they do. And so it's amazing. But what's the like I could list out the perks of your job, right? From the outside looking in. But what do you consider to be the perks of your job? The people definitely like. You put everything aside, like we're very lucky. We're looked after extremely well, all of us. it's not a tiered system where the players get this and the rest of us are scared. Like we're all treated with such dignity, respect. We're all treated the same. ⁓ And it's the people that make it because they're the people, they're the reason why, that's your reason why in the morning, why you're kind of motivated, why you jump out of bed. OK, got a busy day, but I'm going to do this, this, this. I know I'll speak to him or her and, you know, whatever else as well. So I love it. it's when you get to the end of a campaign or, know, yourself, when you when you're caught up in a big project and work and you get to that sense of fulfillment or delivery or you always have a sense of fulfillment, a sense of sadness a bit as well, because you're not going to. see those people again, you might deal with or whatever else as well for a period. And also, you know that, OK, I don't have time to dwell here. We need to move on. Like, it's funny when you were saying at the start of the, you know, at the start of the chat about the Triple Crown and stuff like that. It's brilliant. But I'm thinking somewhere now, like I'm thinking, like I've emails today from Australia talking about, you know, OK, what are your plan? What are your plans when you get here? What access do we have? And all this kind of stuff. So It's brilliant, but the thing moves on quite quickly. Like we've got a Women's Six Nations coming up now where there's a lot of planning with my colleagues in the Media Department, Communications, Commercial, Marketing. And we all have a role. I mightn't be as hands on as my other colleagues would be in terms of dealing with the women's team and the women's management and whatever else as well. But we've all got a duty to make sure that there's as much awareness about it, that you're supporting team and staff as best you can. And we all kind of, we're all rounders in that sense because with the great thing about Rugby and Irish rugby is that you've got the volunteer, you've got the professional arm, you've got the domestic game. And, and there's that great sense of that word again, collegiality of all of us working together, coming towards a busy end to the, the AIL season. And you know, the big double headers that will happen in the Aviva and then you've got all the other matters that tie up the end of the season. And then the end of June, you've got this tour, the start of the nation's championship, which Ireland are playing a match, two matches in Australia against Australia and Japan, and then Auckland and Eden Park and New Zealand have an incredible record there. So this is a new tournament. The new tournament brings its own kind of context. brings its own excitement. And the cool thing is whenever you play abroad, and you'll know this from your own experience with cricket and ⁓ and following teams abroad in any sport is that the amount of Irish fans as well and the diaspora, the reach there, that's really inspiring when you see that. you know, I've got friends and relatives in different parts of the world and they're talking about, want to go see Ireland here. I want to go see Ireland there. And it's very special. You know, it's very special because you realize what it means to so many people. The winds keep on turning. The worst of feeling is the bit of tiredness. you know, you haven't slept, like, you know, I love anyone who's a mother, I'd say will roll their eyes, including my own, when she hears this and kind of go, you don't know tiredness. And I don't, you don't. 100%. But you know what? It's everyone's context is their own. know, everyone's busyness is their own. Everyone's tiredness is their own. So you're allowed to say it here, Peter. Only here though, and I could edit it out if your mother's going to be very. It should kill me. I know, but it's brilliant. And I suppose the point that I've reinforced and I'm lucky I work in sport. I've got friends who are passionate about medicine. There's pals of mine who are working loads of different industries and they love what they do. It's also not linear though. I'd say, you know, finding something that you like, finding something that you're interested in and then. Finding a way through that to making that your job takes time. And it's not gonna happen with your first throw of the dice. It's not gonna happen by your third roll. Chances are it's gonna take four or five jobs before you even know what you want. Like, you know, I think kids today, when they think about sitting in front of a CAO portal and trying to decide what they need to do, like it's bewildering to think that... this, you you have to have a plan. You don't have to have a plan to think that everything rides on this one course that you're going to do. No, people drop out. People discover that actually psychology isn't what it was or, you know, medicine isn't what it was or arts isn't what it was. There's also folks that end up by accident discovering something that they really like through a job they didn't like. So there's so many different ways of getting where you go to, but it's a real privilege. to land eventually on something that you love. That's the privilege. I had a clue what I wanted to do. ⁓ I had a sense of an industry that I thought I wanted to work in. But like, it's so daunting and there's so much pressure. like, I had a friend who she studied nursing. I went through all the hard yards of nursing, working in wards, really, really tough job. She got to the end of her course. And she said, look, this isn't for me. And I remember I met her a couple of months after and she wanted to get into kind of the education side. And I remember I met her. said, geez, you did all the hard work and you're, you're, you're going to go in. And I said, that's probably one of the bravest things. says, yeah, I just, didn't want to give up on it, but I knew early on that it wasn't going to be for me. So I kind of went, that's extraordinary. And I, and I, I friends who've gone on to different fields and diversified then. There was another guy who was studying business, but then said, actually, I want to try and be a doctor. And then while the rest of us were all in our career ladders and we all had started to get a few bob in in our banks every, every month, he went back to college, did the whatever, the six or seven year grind. And while he took a step back to take two, three, four five steps forward. And it's so brave to do that. And not everyone has that flexibility, but the one thing I would say is that If you are passionate about anything, I am convinced you will get into it. I think people, particularly there's an inherent goodness in Irish people as well. People want to support each other. there are ways, even if you kind of say, listen to this, God, I'd love to do what Laura's doing or I'd love to do what Peter's doing or whoever. There are ways to contact people on LinkedIn, like contact businesses, try and find out if you, if I can do, look, can I volunteer? Can I come and... shadow in a press conference one day or can I just have a sense of what you do on a day? And people are quite giving up their time. Wait, you see now I'll get a hundred applicants and then decline. But you want to encourage people to do it. But the one thing I would say about students particularly who are looking like respect people's time as well. Don't do something because you think it's a nice way to or it's an easy path or it's this, there's nothing easy. you know, none of us have reached our highest levels. We're all trying to strive to get up the ladder and keep on progressing and keep on doing as well as we can in our lives and in our careers. But but but really be diligent, really do as much research like that's one of the great things about AI. It's one of the great things about the Internet. It's one of the great things about the whole scope of information that's out there. You can find out, you can get a sense very quickly of the areas you're interested in, but really, really be passionate about it. Because to be honest, people can spot kind of spoofers, people who are chancellors who aren't really into it, but are actually looking for, you know, a shortcut to something else. Yeah, there are no shortcuts. That's another spoiler alert. There are no shortcuts to a fulfilling career. It is the hard yards. And sometimes ⁓ I can get criticized for saying that, but it's been my experience and anyone I've seen do well, they've got there by doing what you've just said, by creating opportunities where there weren't any, ⁓ meeting people that would help them with those opportunities. But you've touched on AI, the internet, the accessibility of information. What role or how big a role does AI play in your job today. did a diploma last year and one of the big points from the lecture at the end of every lecture was, you know, we had to do a task and then at the end you had to do a project and they were just like going, use AI, don't use AI. For my job, I suppose the opportunities I would see in AI and as I said, I don't mean it's an expert, it's around technology, around athletes. Again, I'm not a sports scientist, but you can certainly see the tool and how much of a positive tool that can be, I think for any business, and I would include the business of sport as a business, they want to understand who their customer is. Male, female, young or old, likes, dislikes, interests, what their spending patterns are, what matches they attend and why. ⁓ So understanding that level of fan engagement, knowing that I've got particular interests in cricket, rugby union, golf, Gaelic games, football. Okay, know, and, you know, I'm 40 something white male based in Ireland, you know, and how they can channel particular interests and algorithms towards me. That's where it's, it's both a bit frightening, but also quite interesting. And, but I would see AI, like nothing will discount the one-on-one personal relationships. you know, to look the whites of somebody's eyes at a meeting is critically important because technology should always be used as an opportunity, I think, ⁓ because there's information there. It does help you understand. It can open the world. ⁓ But the personal relationships, if I break down my role to one, if you were to say to me, like, what's the one thing that your role is all about. And it's about personal relationships, how you deal with different stakeholders, your colleagues, for me, media, sponsors, supporters, either in person or online or whatever else as well. So AI, I suppose some people are kind of, there is that debate at the moment. Is it a threat? Is it a weakness or is it a strength? it an opportunity? It's all of the above, no more than. people said that the internet was going to kill off different industries and it didn't. It actually augmented it. actually improved ⁓ society in lots of ways. Social media, not so much, ⁓ but certainly the wider internet as an information tool has been critical. So AI, I would see in terms of one area, in terms of fan engagement, fan interaction, I think it'll be a really important tool. But it's a really important part of my job is to be to look at, take a 360 approach to reading about different media or trying to understand different things. And having those personal relationships in country through your network to be able to pick up the phone and say, look, here's the challenge we're facing. How would you go about doing this? Yeah, absolutely. Peter, this has been immense. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate you being on Decoded and helping us translate your role. Not at all. Thank you very much. And we all have a role to play in terms of hope and to inspire and hope. to assist the next generation. So in our families, in our lives, in our networks, in our communities. So it's a great thing. And hopefully it'll help parents as well and give them a bit of a steer because it's not straightforward. Life isn't straightforward at the moment, but it's very rewarding. Life is a team sport at the moment. We need each other. So thanks a million. Not at all. Thank you.