{"id":398268,"date":"2026-01-07T20:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/398268\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T20:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:43:10","slug":"the-ireland-rugby-social-ian-mckinley-from-accident-to-the-azzurri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/398268\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ireland Rugby Social &#8211; Ian McKinley: From accident to the Azzurri"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sw-text-body-copy sw-pt-4 sw-text-secondary\">Available for over a year<\/p>\n<p class=\"sw-text-body-copy sw-whitespace-pre-line sw-pt-4 sw-text-secondary\">What does it take to come back from the impossible? Ian McKinley was a rising rugby star whose career was shattered by a freak accident that left him blind in one eye. Most would have walked away\u2014but Ian didn\u2019t. In this episode, we explore his extraordinary journey from despair to determination, reinventing himself as a professional player with protective goggles and becoming a symbol of resilience worldwide. Ian shares the highs, the lows, and what it means to redefine your limits when life changes in an instant.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/p0msm5dc\" aria-label=\"Programme Website of Ian McKinley: From accident to the Azzurri\" data-testid=\"programme-website-link\" class=\"sw-group sw-inline-flex sw-items-center sw-pt-4\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Programme Website<\/a>Show less<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Available for over a year What does it take to come back from the impossible? Ian McKinley was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-398268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}