The Journey song Don’t Stop Believin’ didn’t come on the radio and miraculously inspire Eli Walker when the going got tough after his enforced retirement from rugby.
Stuff like that may happen in films, but this was real life, where short-cuts out of adversity, backed by uplifting music, tend to be in short supply.
But even when an entire regiment of negative voices in his head were urging him to switch off the alarm clock and hurl it away as daylight streamed into his bedroom every morning, the former Wales and Ospreys wing still did the necessary and hauled himself out of bed to face the day.
It wasn’t easy.
“I can look back now and say it was the hardest time of my life,” says Walker.
“I had a one-year-old child as a single parent having split with my partner; I had a mortgage to pay and I didn’t have any income.
“It was a ridiculously difficult situation that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“Some days I’d wake and think for a split-second: ‘I’m not going into work, I’m not going to do this and I’m not going to do that’.
“I’d think of hiding away.
“But rugby moulds you and it was still in my head that I needed to get up and make the effort.
“I feel lucky to have been part of such a competitive and strict environment, because it does stand you in good stead.”
NO-MAN’S LAND AND ALL THAT
Walker has come a long way since. We did this interview on the eve of his picking up a master’s degree from Cardiff Met University. He has also launched his own construction company, Walker Blake Limited, helped by business partner Louise O’Halloran, of the Juno Moneta Group, head sponsors at the Scarlets.
There is now light at the end of the tunnel, and it isn’t an onrushing train.
But only Walker knows how he has managed to turn his situation around.
Fate turned against him when handing the one-cap international a back injury that was never going to be shrugged off after a good night’s sleep. It soon became obvious he was going to struggle to return to rugby. It was 2017 and he was just 24.
Potentially, he was up the creek with no paddle within easy reach.
He had dreamed of playing rugby since he was a child. There was no Plan B, just the sportsman’s hope that there would be a career in his chosen profession through to his mid-30s, with plenty of time to think about tomorrow.
But tomorrow had been brought forward, with bells on.
“It was a strange time,” says Walker. “A while before it was confirmed, I had an idea I might have to retire.
“In that period, before I met Louise and launched my business, I was in no-man’s land.
“I was injured, I had split with my partner and I knew I needed to do everything I could to find a way forward for the rest of my life.
“It could have gone one of two ways. Definitely.
“I went without a salary for more than a year and you do go into panic mode.
“You do think: ‘How am I going to pay my mortgage and look after my little one?’”
Walker had negotiated an amicable 50-50 access arrangement over daughter Blake with his former partner, meaning he had to keep plenty of time free in his diary — it not being easy to prepare a baby’s feed or offer yourself as a ready source of amusement and guidance for a toddler while ploughing your way through the latest research for a master’s degree.
“You just have to divide up your time,” says Walker.
“I had to cram work, life and my studies into the half of the week that I didn’t have Blake.
“It’s an understatement to say the balance of my life wasn’t the greatest, but slowly but surely I started to get somewhere.
“The hardest part was having to graft without knowing what was going to happen. Normally you have a goal. But I just felt I was working hard without any certainty about where I’d end up.
“It took more than a year to come out of that fog.”
WALKER THE PLAYER
How good could Walker have been as a rugby player?
We will never definitively know, but those fortunate to have been at the Liberty Stadium on December 15, 2012, might be tempted to say he could have been right up there among the very best. That day, the Ospreys played Toulouse and their left wing positively terrorised the European aristocrats.
Sitting alongside him in the post-match press conference, Ospreys assistant coach Gruff Rees said: “He has the attributes to do damage to any team in the world.”
For the avoidance of doubt, Rees isn’t a hype, hype, hooray type of coach. For him to get excited, the effort needs to be special. Against Toulouse, Walker came up with an extraordinary display.
The following European round Walker dished out similar treatment to Leicester Tigers. It was some of the most electrifying wing play by a Welsh player this decade.
But the good times were punctuated by appalling luck with injuries.
AND SO TO BUSINESS...
Now all that’s a thing of the past.
His venture into the business world owed much to Louise O’Halloran, a businesswoman with a winning touch.
“I was rehabbing at the Ospreys, trying to come back from a lower-back injury when Louise came in to talk to us about investment opportunities,” says Walker.
“My ears pricked up because I knew I didn’t have long left on my contract. The rehab wasn’t going the way I wanted it to. I just thought it might be a good opportunity for me to invest.
“The idea was we’d buy properties at auction and those properties would then be completely renovated, pushing the value up. Then it’s up to you whether you want to flip the property or keep it as part of your portfolio.
“So I did a couple with her and one day asked a question about how the construction side of things was handled. She replied: ‘We just go out and get quotes’.
“I knew a lot of plumbers, plasterers and so on, so I asked why we couldn’t do it internally, and she said: ‘That’s the attitude we are looking for. We’ll do it ourselves and start our own construction business’.
“That’s how Walker Blake was formed.”
DYSLEXIA AND A MASTER’S DEGREE
His master’s degree was in strength and conditioning.
The problem was he had battled dyslexia throughout his life. Reading and writing at master’s degree level was something a 13-year-old Eli Walker would never have contemplated. It was the kind of stuff done by others.
“Being dyslexic, I had always found academic work difficult,” he says.
“But there was no getting away from it: the course involved a lot of essay writing and if I was going to get anywhere I had to deal with it.
“I did my dissertation on injury in high-level performance sprinting in a rugby environment.
“I hadn’t put together an essay since I was 15, so it was hard, but gradually I got to grips with it.
“Given my dyslexia and how long I’d been out of education for, it means a lot to have picked up a degree.
“I’d say it’s one of my biggest achievements, alongside my Wales cap.”
THE PROJECT MANAGER
We are speaking at Ysgol Y Felin in Llanelli, where Walker and his team have just renovated a playground in the school’s specialist unit, helping young children with additional needs. Funded significantly on the back of a charity golf day organised by Juno Moneta, and with considerable help from the local community, it is an impressive effort, and headteacher Helen Wynne is delighted.
Images on a screen show the area before Walker and his colleagues started work. A glance outside reveals the finished product.
It’s as if magic dust has been sprinkled around, producing a vibrant and colourful place for youngsters to learn and play. “You do feel happy doing something like this,” says Walker, attending the launch with the likes of Phil Bennett, Enzo Maccarinelli and Carmarthen Quins stalwart Haydn Pugh in attendance.
“It is going to have a big effect on the children’s lives.”
THE HARDEST GAME?
In between all the studying, launching a company and parenting, Walker has thrown himself into boxing. How does getting bumped about the head help matters?
He laughs: “I just needed a competitive edge and boxing ticks that box.
“I had been going to Enzo’s Bonymaen gym. I was just running and working on my fitness at first, but I had a go in the ring and I’ve since had a few fights.
“It’s out of my comfort zone and you have to learn quickly.
“I thought I was strong and fast from my sport, but when you are tired in boxing you have to defend, otherwise you’ll know about it.
“There’s no hiding place.”
Walker won his first bout but any temptation to think he was on easy street was soon dispelled. In his second outing, he was put on the canvas by Cwmbran ABC’s Edward Wood. The ex-rugby man also took two standing counts before his opponent claimed a points decision.
Undaunted, Walker has emerged triumphant in two further ring sorties.
“I have huge respect for boxers,” he says.
“For rugby players, Wales is a goldfish bowl. Everyone looks at a rugby player walking down the street, with most of them well-known, but an amateur boxer can go unnoticed when he or she walks past.
“It’s mad, really.
“If I see one that I recognise, I mentally give him or her huge credit.
“It’s hard to compare the two sports, because they are so different.
“The Wales boys are out in Switzerland now preparing for the Rugby World Cup and I can remember how hard it was four years ago. It was brutal.
“But working in the Bonymaen gym, some of these amateur boxers do match the intensity and work ethic of the Wales professional rugby environment.
“I can’t speak on behalf of other gyms, but Enzo has brought his work ethic from being a professional fighter himself. He’s puts it into the guys he’s training.”
THINKING FOR SOMEONE ELSE
One more question: how did he cope on receiving the news that his rugby career would have to end prematurely?
“I remember the surgeon and the Ospreys medical performance manager Chris Towers telling me that because it was a lower-back disc injury, if I attempted to return to rugby and re-injured it, then I might not be able to run around with my daughter,” says Walker.
“That was key for me.
“If I didn’t have my daughter I probably would have been quite stubborn and thought: ‘I’m doing it for me’.
“But it was one of the first occasions in my life when I’ve had to think for someone else.
“So it did soften the blow.”
ADVERSITY CONFRONTED
Ultimately, it’s a story of triumph over adversity, then.
Walker is the dyslexic and non-academic former schoolboy who has just achieved a master’s degree. He’s the single parent who has had to learn fast about the huge responsibilities that particular role entails. He’s the company director who has launched a business with limited knowledge and experience in that area.
He has picked himself up after seeing his sporting dreams crushed.
And he is refreshingly free of rancour.
“It’s human nature to look back and think about things,” he says.
“At one point in 2013 I was picked in the Wales squad and it was a toss-up between me and Sanjay (Liam Williams) for a place on the wing.
“My injuries started from there. Pre-game, I pulled a hamstring, so I had to withdraw.
“But if you look at the heights Sanjay has reached, pretty much injury free, it’s inspiring for anyone.
“It just goes to show what you can achieve if you stay fit and healthy.
“There’s no point being bitter.
“It was obviously hard, because for as long as I can remember, all I ever wanted to be was a professional rugby player.
“But what happened was out of my hands.
“I can’t go back and think ‘what if’. It was a definitive moment that meant I had to finish.”
It was a joy to watch Walker at his flying-machine best, even if injuries hit him hard and often.
But maybe it was an even bigger joy to hear how he’s dealt with the challenges he’s faced over the past two years.
Others would have given up.
But he has emerged tougher, stronger and a better person for the whole experience.
Character can count for a huge amount.
