Jacob Stockdale Irish eyes were certainly smiling in Dublin at the weekend as Ireland secured an historic win over the All Blacks, but star player Jacob Stockdale takes it all in his stride putting his rugby career firmly in the hands of God.
The Ulster player – who electrified the Aviva Stadium with his winning try over New Zealand – is a devout Christian and puts prayer at the centre of his professional life.
“My dad, growing up, he was a minister, so I always grew up in a Church environment, a Christian environment. So it’s something that’s always been important to my life, and our life as a family.”
Mr Stockdale told a recent church gathering in Co. Down that his deep Faith also helps him cope when things go wrong. “Whenever I have a bad game, or I screw up, or do something stupid, I can just let it go and say: ‘God, you know what you’re at here, so I’ll let you sort it out’. And that takes a lot of pressure off.”
Life of faith
However, he also admitted that it can be difficult to combine a life of faith with a rugby career. “It can be incredibly hard. It’s probably something that I haven’t quite mastered myself.
“You work with your mates – 40 lads – and it’s quite easy to get caught up in lad banter, and to do things everybody else is doing because it’s the easiest thing to do.
“The one thing that I found is to keep coming back to Church, to keep getting refilled, refreshed. That makes it easier to go back into Ulster [Rugby] every week, and be who I want to be,” he said.