BOB CASEY'S DIARY: Handing up the London Irish captaincy was a major wrench, says Bob Caseyin his first weekly diary of the new season

LOSING THE captaincy of London Irish was a disappointment and I’d lying if I said otherwise. It’s been an integral part of my life, professional and private, for the past five years – three of them in a full-time capacity wearing the armband.

It was a tremendous honour to captain London Irish. A glance at the Honours’ Board in the club reveals the footprints in which you tread. It’s quite humbling. I spoke with our coach Toby Booth on returning from holidays. We had discussed the issue throughout the summer and agreed that a change in captaincy was the right way to go.

A primary concern was having the captain on the pitch for the final 20 minutes of a match, when many games are decided. It’s a crucial period and a team needs direction. These days there is an occasional discrepancy between my mental and physical dexterity, a sort of Mexican standoff where the body refuses to accept direction. I am reliably informed by some older players that it’s called the ageing process.

Joking aside, I know that I will probably play the full 80 minutes less often this season and therefore appreciated Toby’s thought process in switching the captaincy. It was a sensible option. We have worked closely together over the years. I respect him as a person and coach and know that he made the decision in the best interests of the club. As a senior player, my input won’t diminish much.

During my time as captain we had a group of leaders and that’ll be the same under the new skipper, Clarke Dermody. My new status allows me to be a little bit more selfish in term of focusing on my own game. Without wishing to sound maudlin, when you reach a certain stage in your career you appreciate the importance of enjoying the privilege of playing professional sport.

For the first time in a long while I didn’t have to undergo surgery or embark on a summer tour so I was able to fully avail of a four-week break. I returned to Ireland for a week and then went off to Portugal and France. It’s funny but, in my 30 days off, I probably went to the gym on about 20 of them for a little fat-burning. The consequences of over- indulging and not managing my weight during the break would make the pre-season training even more hellish. Plus there is the financial penalty that the club extracts for those who put on too much weight. I’m far too tight to pay any fine unlike one team-mate who had to stump up £1,000 (€1,200).

I ran into Reggie Corrigan, Girvan Dempsey and their families in Portugal and became “Uncle Bob” to my little nephew Seán for a couple of days. I took my turn as the Mitch Buchanan of the kiddies’ pool, the water lapping around my ankles. The friendships that you form in rugby endure and it was great to see them.

My gallivanting finished on June 24th, the day I returned for pre-season training. I reckon it’s either my 12th or 13th time to do pre-season as a professional rugby player. It’s changed so much from those early days when you’d be pounding out the miles, doing hill runs, bleep tests and 30 x 200 metre sprints.

These days it’s rugby specific workouts. There is a great deal less running and everything progresses at a more measured pace. The exercises are designed with rugby in mind. For example the tight five would do “down and ups”, “up and downs”, pulling and pushing a sled, medicine ball and then wrestling or, it’s probably more accurate to say, grappling. There’s obviously gym work as well.

The results are there in black and white so there’s no hiding place. We also wear our GPS units that provide conditioning coach Allan Ryan with all the evidence he requires to torture you. In fairness, he travels in the summer to look at training methods in other sports so he can keep things fresh and up to date. Declan Lynch, our physiotherapist, spent time at Aussie Rules Club Collingwood to see how they prehab and rehab players.

We spent a week at Marcoussis, the state-of-the-art facility custom built for the French national rugby team about 15 miles from the centre of Paris. Our defence coach Dave Ellis – he fulfils the same role with France – negotiated a good rate.

Everything is on site and they’ve even built a bridge from the bedrooms to the pitches so Chabal and company don’t encounter any of those pesky journalists. The only time I left my room was to eat or train. We managed to incorporate two weeks’ work into one and away from the pitch got through lots of meetings.

Mike Catt returned from one of those to find the entire contents of his room out on the decking: bed, locker, lamps, television, table. The works.

Pre-season training lasted from June 24th to September 4th. Players trained on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday with Thursday and Sunday off. We were given one week off in the middle. You can understand why players are chomping to get back to matches after that sort of regimen.

The coaches have instigated a two-hour recovery session on Sundays after Saturday matches. Basically, a player goes in to see the physio to be assessed for any knocks. Then it’s off for what they call a “flush through massage” for about 20 minutes before taking to the ice baths for 10 minutes. You then have a protein shake before heading for the gym and a 15-minute workout on the cross-trainer. Finally there’s a trip to the swimming pool. It’d certainly make any player think twice about climbing into the beers following a match.

Toby had promised us a day off if we manage a bonus-point victory but it came too late for me to make it to Croke Park for the All-Ireland hurling final. My parents are from Tipperary and are huge hurling fans. Many of my childhood memories involve going to Munster hurling finals.

When I won my first cap for Ireland in what was then the Five Nations, my Dad bumped into Charlie Chawke who suggested to him that he must be very proud. My Dad replied he was but not as much as he would be if I had been playing in an All-Ireland hurling final for Tipperary.

Last Sunday week he was proudly sporting a Tipperary cowboy hat, his Tipperary rainproof jacket . . . well you get the picture, the John Wayne of south Tipperary.

The parents were at Croke Park, went down for the homecoming and returned to Thurles for the under 21 hurling final between Tipperary and Galway.

Beating Saracens was a huge psychological fillip, especially given the disappointing manner in which we finished last season. You can put in an excellent pre-season but the doubts linger until you banish them on the pitch.