"Down the Line" blog by Robbie Paul
Down the line by Robbie Paul
27th January 2010
I now know that the decision I took to leave full-time professionalism in the engage Super League arena and join the part-time professional ranks with Leigh Centurions in the Co-operative Championship was not misplaced.
I can tell you now that it was the right decision for me.
That’s because it really affects two important areas of my life. First there is the rest of my own life after I finish playing and second is there is the closing stage of my Rugby League playing career.
At the moment I’m studying Sports Marketing at Huddersfield University. The University was very good to me. Because I was a full-time professional sportsman they allowed me to spread the first year of my studies over two years.
Now I’m halfway through the second year and I’m loving every second of it.
I’m passionate about sports marketing. My family think I’m almost crazy because most of the time I have my nose buried in a text book or I’m absorbing something else to do with my course.
But I’m taking the same approach to my studies as I do as a professional Rugby League player. I’m super competitive by nature and as a player I always give everything I do 100 plus per cent.
It’s the same with my studies. Sports Marketing really fascinates me and I just want be as good as it’s possible to be. Like my Rugby League it’s all – or nothing.
I’m just so lucky to have chosen as my career something that I really love. It’s almost a throw back to when I was a teenager in New Zealand and I decided to make a career out of being a professional sportsman, it broke my mother’s heart at the time.
She’s really happy about me now and is very proud of what I’ve achieved in Rugby League.
Having taken the decision to become a part-time professional I’m now fully committed to enjoying what remains of my time playing.
I know I said something similar when I was at Salford City Reds, but I really expect Leigh Centurions to be my last club. Yes, I know, I know, you’ve heard it all before but time is catching up with me
Last year when I was at Salford I spent a great deal of my time playing at hooker because that’s what the club wanted me to do and really they were planning for the future because they were grooming Richie Myler at halfback.
As a full-time professional player you do what you are told to do and that’s exactly what I did at the City Reds.
From the moment I started to talk to the then Leigh coach Paul Rowley and his successor Ian ‘Basil’ Millward it was different. They wanted me to revert to being a halfback and, you know, I couldn’t wait to get back behind that pack.
I want to enjoy what’s left of my career and really being a halfback, where you spend a great deal of the game running with the ball in your hands challenging opponents and being involved at the centre of things, is where I wanted to be.
Being a part-time professional also means I can devote more time to my new job as the Northern Rail Cup ambassador. As I explained earlier if I take a job on I give it my best shot and this isn’t going to be any different.
It’s great that Northern Rail has given a current player like me such a role and not many other players are ever afforded such an opportunity. I intend to enjoy it as much as I can just as I will in every game I play for the Centurions.
