‘Hopefully we can pull together and push on’

Towards the end of 2024 Leigh Jackson made his 200th AIL appearance for Navan. After Navan's last game of the year reflected on his years in the oval all game.

Jimmy Geoghegan

At the end of last season Leigh Jackson was planning on sounding the final whistle on his rugby playing career

Then early this season he got a call from Navan coach Jason Harris-Wright. "Come back Leigh we need you," was the gist of the message extended from coach to player.

Harris-Wright had brought a troop of new players into the squad and he needed someone with the leadership and cool head that only experience can bring. Jackson gladly answered his club's call in the affirmative and set off on another campaign in the AIL - and he's glad he did.

At 36 the big prop is enjoying his rugby as much as anytime during his 16 years wearing the colours of Navan RFC on the playing fields of Ireland - and it shows. Sixteen years of consistency and dedication to the cause. It's an admirable legacy in loyalty.

Last month Jackson, who is originally from Cavan town but now lives in Trim, marked his 200th AIL game for the Balreask Old club away to Cashel - and celebrated the milestone by helping Navan to their first win of the season in Div 2A.

On Saturday he was on very familiar territory helping to lockdown the Navan scrum as his side took on and defeated Ballymena 22-21 back at Balreask Old in what was their third victory (they hammered Buccaneers 41-7 for their second win the previous week).

With Ballymena and Navan both seeking to extricate themselves from the relegation mire and pull away from the relegation zone this was, as one Navan supporter noted before kick-off, "a real 10 pointer."

Navan didn't get the extra bonus point for four tries scored but they did secure the victory and that means a lot for a team that shipped a string of defeats at the early stages of the season. Defeats that underlined the difficulties any team under construction can encounter during it's early development stages.

Jackson, a director of the family construction firm, spoke about how he has greatly savoured his 16 years with Navan. Typically self-effacing he says his long stint playing at a relatively high level is as much down to others as it is to himself and his own commitment to the game.

"I must give credit to my wife Eimear (the daughter of Eamonn Murray who led the Meath ladies football team to two All-Ireland SFC titles). She gives me the blessing and the support to play on," he said as he stood outside a boisterous Navan dressing room following Saturday's narrow in.

"She makes it easy for me to train and give the commitment that's needed to play at this level. My son Caolan and Eimear, I must give them credit."

There were others who Jackson paid tribute to for helping him along the way.

"The fact that I have played 16 years with Navan is a testament to the club itself, that I would want to come back and play each year. It's a special, special club with great people around it, and we have a great bunch of lads in the squad.

"I have to credit Alan Kingsley (former Navan coach) also. I was joking with him a few weeks back that I joined Navan as a number eight but he transitioned me into a front-row player and by doing so probably put five or six years on my career."

The mixture of physicality and technique needed to perform at the coalface as a prop appealed to Jackson, particularly at tighthead, arguably the most important role in any team. He started out as a loosehead but his size and skills set, he discovered, were more suitable for the other side of the scrum.

"In any game if you can't win your setpieces, your scrums and line-outs, then you are in trouble so it's great to be able to give something to the team and be able to add my bit to the whole mix as it were."

As a young emerging player Jackson spent time at the Ulster Academy, turning out at u-19 and youths levels for the province. He joined Clontarf for a while before signing for Navan - where he has stayed since.

Over the years Jackson has noted some big changes in how the game is played. "It's a lot faster now. When I started it was very much up the jumper rugby, the old traditional Munster way. Now it's about dummy runners, switch plays and setpiece moves. It's a much faster game and, believe it or not, it's actually more physical. The hits are bigger, harder."

On Saturday Jackson played for exactly 60 minutes before he was replaced. He certainly played his part in ensuring Navan withstood some intense pressure to contain a Ballymena side who came surging back to briefly lead after trailing 7-19 at the interval. Somehow Navan couldn't reproduce in the second-half the kind of attacking verve the showed in the opening 40 minutes.

Instead they had to hunker down and defend - and they did so like lions and eventually win out.

"The first half we were brilliant, the second half we showed a lack of discipline, gave away a lot of penalties, they were able to pin us back into our own half but then Tom (Gavigan) was able to score from a penalty with a really nice kick to give us the victory.

"We are winning games now compared to the start of the season. This was our third win from the last four games. We are starting to see a lot of stuff we do in training transition into games, hopefully in the second-half of the season we can pull together and push on."

Navan's tighthead prop knows there's still a long, long way to go before Navan's fate is decided. Safety or the drop.

The trick, he appreciates, is to just keep going. Keep believing.