I just love playing and had an amazing career

PLAYING in the Championship isn’t sustainable with the level of funding clubs currently get so while it was a hard decision to quit professional rugby a couple of years ago at the age of 28, I had to think about my future, otherwise I’d have been holding off the inevitable and I didn’t want to be entering a new job market well into my 30s.

- MARK BEST

Sadly, the money just isn’t there below the Premiership. I was probably playing as well as I’d ever been but even then, it was difficult to get a contract for £30k. It’s a constant struggle to get by.

Not that I had any complaints about Doncaster. I got on with all of the coaches there and the owners were really good to me. Bodes (Steve Boden) and I still catch up every now and again, which I really appreciate. He understood where I was coming from and I understood where he was coming from when it came down to contract negotiations. He was upfront and honest about the amount of money he had to spend, and it makes it so much easier to have a relationship with a director of rugby/coach when it is like that. Some aren’t quite so straight-talking.

I’m now a building surveyor for a company called Moore MacDonald. They’re the main sponsor of Ballynahinch, the All-Ireland club that I play for. They took me on as a graduate and I am grateful that something came up because I was a wee bit stuck for a while after I’d left Donny. Like a lot of other former pros, I found the transition difficult. One minute, you are surrounded by a bunch of lads roughly your own age and the next you’re not, and it can be quite isolating.