The strapping frame of Emeka Ilione strides into the coffee shop on the ground floor of the University of Nottingham Medical School. He is early, enjoying a welcome break from the library and some renal revision, which involves answering a bank of questions about kidneys in preparation for the final stages of a six-year medical degree. Ilione has 151 days left. The countdown is on.
It is Wednesday morning and a day off for Leicester Tigers but there is no such thing for Ilione, who has been juggling his studies with a flourishing professional rugby career. Now 23, Ilione broke into the Leicester squad last season, trained with England and he has started games this campaign at both open-side flanker and No8 for Tigers. He is a breakdown fiend and a powerful ball-carrier.
Ilione’s schedule is so tight that he struggles to find time between his two full-time commitments for driving lessons, so he relies on the train and Uber for his travel between Nottingham and Leicester; training at Tigers in the morning followed by university studies or medical placements into the evening.
Ilione describes the hard work required to balance his two full-time commitments as a privilege
MICHAEL POWELL FOR THE TIMES
The only extra-curricular activity Ilione makes time for is photography. He will walk from the university to capture the scenery at Wollaton Hall, the Elizabethan grade I listed mansion. Ilione shows our photographer some of his favourite shots. “You avoid relying on filters,” Mike tells him. “That’s good.”
“Photography is how I switch off,” Ilione says. “With rugby and medicine, I used to use one to switch off from the other but now they are both so intense I needed something else, a third thing.
“I’m someone who wants to be the best at whatever I do. I tried to play the piano but it became another thing for me where I was working so hard mentally. I was like, ‘I want to do the theory, I want to learn all this.’ But I have learnt through all this that you can’t be relentless all the time. It gets too much.
“I remember, we beat Stade Français away on a Sunday night. We flew back that night and I was on a rotation in the trauma department on the Monday morning. The consultant had been watching the game and was like, ‘Weren’t you in Paris 12 hours ago? You can go home.’
Ilione’s powerful ball-carrying was on display against Northampton Saints
CRAIG MERCER/ALAMY
“I said, ‘The club has a day off. I have got to come in and get my stuff done. I need to be in.’ He was quite shocked. It has been really hard. I need to stay on top of my placements, stay on top of my revision, but I am on the final stretch now” — 151 days to go.
Ilione’s father is a forensic psychologist, working with mentally ill criminals, and his mother owns a pharmacy. They did not push him towards medicine; quite the opposite in fact. “My dad is very aware how hard medicine is,” he says. “But it is a vocation. My parents initially didn’t understand there could be a career in rugby. But you are only one injury away from having it all taken away.”
Tom Rees is a prime example; same position, same vocation. The former Wasps flanker won 15 caps for England before he was forced to retire with a knee injury. He now works as a doctor at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital.
Jamie Roberts, the former Wales centre, provided a reference to the university on Ilione’s behalf, confirming it was possible to balance a full-time degree with being a professional rugby player. Ilione declined the financial element of his university scholarship because of his rugby income, preferring the money be given to a student who needs it.
Henry Pollock, left, and Ilione could be the future of England’s back row
MALCOLM COUZENS/GETTY
Ilione also shares notes with Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, the England wing who is studying medicine at the University of Exeter. He speaks regularly with Roberts for advice on managing workload and planning his career post-graduation.
Roberts finally began his two-year foundation programme this summer, 12 years after graduating. Ilione, who is studying to become a surgeon, plans to follow a similar route. In 151 days’ time he will be clear to dedicate his immediate future to rugby. What will he do with his time?
Born in Mansfield, Ilione was a promising footballer in the Nottingham Forest academy. “I was never going to make it and even at the age of 11 and 12 you have to miss bits of school,” he says. “My parents were like, ‘No that’s not a possibility.’ ”
Ilione discovered rugby at Nottingham High School and fell immediately in love with the sport. By the age of 13 he was on Leicester’s development pathway. At 16 he moved to Rugby School, where he was appointed head boy only two terms after arriving. “I must have made a good impression,” he says. He went on to captain England Under-18 and Under-20.
Ilione’s eyes light up at any mention of his alma mater and the “privilege” of furthering his career at the birthplace of the sport. “Oh my gosh. It is such a special place. The history. To wear the all-white kit. I absolutely loved my time at Rugby. It was really important in my development as a person and a player,” he says.
Ilione is a powerful runner with the ball in hand, but admits that winning turnovers excites him the most
MATTHEW LEWIS/GETTY IMAGES
Before beginning his studies on Wednesday morning, Ilione had watched a re-run of the last five minutes of the 2023 World Cup quarter-final between Ireland and New Zealand. The All Blacks withstood 38 phases of relentless Irish attack before Sam Whitelock locked on to the ball over Rónan Kelleher to secure the match-winning jackal penalty.
“Winning turnovers excites me the most,” he says. “I love it when you are in a defensive set. Your team is under the pump and you get the turnover. It’s that feeling where everyone is looking at you for that moment. You know you have contributed for your team-mates. That makes me so happy.
“To have a moment like Sam Whitelock would be unbelievable. You know that if you don’t stop them, they will score. You can see the front row just drop to the floor because they have given everything. That for me is a dream. In such a big game as well.
“I have worked hard on my jackalling. It is where I can have the biggest impact on games. My technique is from the work I did with Matt Everard [now the Worcester Warriors director of rugby] when he was Leicester’s transition forwards coach.
“Matt worked with Jack Willis at Wasps. We watched loads of Jack Willis because he is probably the premier jackaller in the world. We do so much homework on it.”
Ilione’s guide to the three different types of jackaller1, “Players who are so quick over the ball that they are in and out.” Will Evans, the Harlequins flanker, is a prime example.2, “Players who are really strong with their feet and can survive the clearout because they are so low.” Willis, with his strength and supreme flexibility, fits into this category.3, “Players who are a bit more unconventional, like Courtney Lawes, who use their longer limbs to get on the ball and are so good at then using their feet, so even when you think you’ve cleared them out, they are still on the ball. I like to think I am in that category but I am trying to work on adding it all together.”
For all his ability to compartmentalise his life, this is Wednesday morning and Ilione is already having to fight the urge to get too hyped about playing Bath this weekend in a rerun of last season’s Prem final and competing against such quality back-row opponents as Sam Underhill and Miles Reid.
There is an added poignancy to this fixture because Lewis Moody, the former Leicester and Bath flanker, will be in attendance. It will be the first time Moody’s former clubs have played since he announced his Motor Neurone Disease diagnosis.
Ilione has been reading closely the research being done on MND’s links with rugby. There is nothing definitive, nothing yet that states rugby players are any more likely to develop MND than cross-country skiers. Ilione ponders whether too many of the research projects are being done in isolation when the cause might benefit from being more centralised.
Ilione scored Leicester’s third try in last season’s final against Bath
CLIVE MASON/GETTY IMAGES
He spends all week loading his brain with information. Match day is about instinct.
“I don’t want to have too much on my mind come game day,” he says. “I want to do my thinking in the week and then just play on a Saturday. If you stop and think for a second, the ball is gone. Trust your instinct. Trust the picture you see. Every team in the Prem has unbelievable jackal threats. I am just excited for the game. But it is Wednesday. I can’t get too much into it.”
With that, Ilione switches into the here and now, organising his mind back into his timetable for the day: interview done, more renal study in the library and then an afternoon seminar with a coroner.
“I love playing rugby,” he says. “I want to test myself and see how far I can go with it. Medicine is a privilege. It is a privilege to be able to help people. It is the way you frame it.
“There are so many people who would love to be in my position in terms of playing professional rugby. And so many people who would love to be at medical school. I’m just so privileged and so lucky to be able to do both. It is a privilege to be in this situation, for it to be so hard.”
Leicester Tigers v Bath
Gallagher Prem
Saturday, 3.05pm
TV TNT Sports 1 and ITV 4