BKT United Rugby Championship: Ulster v Leinster (Friday, 7.35pm, BBC Sport NI)
Many aspiring sports stars would all share similar dreams. To play for the club they grew up supporting, or perhaps playing on the biggest stage of all and line-out for their country.
While many are lucky to achieve their dreams, the journey that they may take often differs.
As Jude Postlethwaite’s career path took him along in one direction, he was forced to watch on as his fellow academy teammates Nathan Doak and Ben Carson were making inroads to the senior squad.
For Postlethwaite, his rugby calling took him to the sevens before going on to play for the Ireland U20s.
“Yeah, it was probably the best thing for me,” said Postlethwaite as he reflected on his career path.
“I am close with Nathan Doak and Ben Carson and to see them in the academy kind of drove me to step up my game and put my head down. Then I was in the sevens for a while, done quite well there. Then I was in the 20s obviously. And that made me progress further.”
The sevens format benefited the careers of teammates Nick Timoney and Cormac Izuchukwu. And young centre Postlethwaite was also keen to take on board as much as he could from the sevens circuit.
“Yeah. Like playing on the world stage was class.
“Like you are playing world class athletes. I can remember playing Fiji in Dubai and they were full of class players. It’s just that one-on-one ability to tackle and stuff, like, I feel it improved a lot for me.”
Postlethwaite’s path to the senior squad was met with further bumps on the road as a number of serious shoulder injuries threatened to derail his ambitions of lining out for Ulster.
But those setbacks only served to build a strong resilience in Postlethwaite and in Ulster’s last home game he was rewarded for his perseverance with a try in his inter-pro debut against Connacht.
“I think it has stood me well. I had three surgeries after U20s, two on one (shoulder), and one on the other. But I think it has stood me well because you need to put your head down to rehab the boring bits, but you need to do them well. I think at a young age learning that is going to do you well in the future.
Coming into the professional environment can be an intimidating prospect for a young kid. But Postlethwaite had no issue settling in as he was more than familiar with one of the current coaches, former teacher Dan Soper.
“He was my teacher in school and I was scared of him in school,” laughed Postlethwaite.
“But now we get on really well. He’s been massive. Just coming in here and having someone to talk to. He’s always there.
“He’s brought out the confidence in me. He knows what I could do, even before I came in here. Just, coming into this environment is kind of daunting so like he would just reassure me to play my game.”
