The arrival of a new boardroom table at RUPA headquarters last week wouldn’t usually be something we’d stop to write about it. On paper, it hardly sounds like riveting stuff, however the reality couldn’t be further from the truth; the delivery of this table represented a ‘full circle’ transition into life after Rugby for former Waratahs star Stu Pinkerton.
For those not all that familiar with his story, Pinkerton was a true star of the game in the early years of professional Rugby. A trailblazer who moved overseas whilst still in his prime, Stu represented the Australian Schoolboys (1990), Australian U21s (1994) and Australia A (1999), as well as making 65 appearances in the Waratahs back row. In 2001, he moved to the North-West of England when he joined Sale Sharks, now Captained by former Reds flanker Daniel Braid and former home of Wallabies Cam Shepherd and Graeme Bond.
After four years in the UK Pinkerton returned to Australia desperate to kick-start his post-Rugby career, and although most appreciative for the opportunities the code had given him he was a little tired of the Rugby scene.
“By the end of my professional career I was ready to pursue other things,” Pinkerton told RUPA. “I was finding Rugby quite limiting; so much conversation was about Rugby, girls and nightclubs, or a new pair of jeans and a haircut.
“I just felt that professional Rugby’s limited outlook, as a generalisation, was a bit of a constraint for me to really express myself so I stepped away from Rugby completely.”
Despite having been out of Australia for a few years, Pinkerton remained eligible for training & education grants through RUPA, and he embarked on something very different.
“Jenny Dewar was the Waratahs’ Player Development Manager (PDM) when I was playing there, and she was driving RUPA’s directions to ensure everybody was concentrating on their post-Rugby career,” he explains. “I’m not sure where the inspiration came from, but furniture design and interior fitouts really appealed to me so I wanted to study woodworking. (The idea of) Having my own workshop, being my own boss, all those things combined to mean that it was something I really wanted to do.
“The only course we could find was one year’s full time study, so I couldn’t actually start anything in this field until I retired, but the year after I finished playing I enrolled at Sturt School for Wood in Mittagong (around 130km from Sydney in New South Wales’ southern highlands).
“I still thought that it was quite possible that I may be technically hopeless and have no design skills, but I had a lot of great feedback in the course and gained a lot of confidence over that year. When I finished, it was an easy decision to head back to Newcastle (where I grew up) and start my own business.
“When I tell people that RUPA were able to contribute half the cost of my course, despite the fact I had been playing overseas, they are genuinely amazed; they think it is wonderful that the sport is focused on its’ players after they retire.”
So Stu embarked on his own business, beginning his woodworking career and putting his newly-honed skills to the test, as well as making stark improvements to his skills and knowledge along the way.
“I made a lot of mistakes to start with, and at first I just made a lot of small things for friends, but it has evolved to a point where I now have a lot of corporate, commercial and residential clients in Sydney and Newcastle, Canberra and all over New South Wales,” Pinkerton says.
“I have done fitouts for Jamie Oliver restaurants and some GG’s Espresso franchises (George Gregan’s café empire), while I also did Richard Branson’s super yacht, Necker Belle. I am really content with how the business has all worked out, but I am making sure it grows sustainably.
“I don’t want to simply employ five guys and produce things which aren’t up to the right standard; I’m deliberately keeping it small and making sure it is all about producing high quality pieces. I’m not looking to franchise it out or move it Australia-wide; I see myself as more of a craftsman and it’s going to stay as a small to medium business.
“That’s a decision I made post-Rugby where I wanted to be able to dictate my own terms and be in control of my own business,” he continues. “I like the feeling of being able to take a day off because I can and then catch up by working on the weekend; I like the freedom of making my own choices. Having said that, everybody who has their own business knows that you do a lot more hours because you are so heavily invested!”
So back to the RUPA boardroom, and the ‘full circle’ transition. When RUPA needed a new boardroom table designed, Chief Executive Officer Ross Xenos and his team immediately thought of (former RUPA Player Director) Stu, and the synergy that would come from engaging his services to deliver a quality product.
“When Ross contacted me with this brief, I thought it was a great opportunity to come back and show what the funding and the emphasis on career training from RUPA had done for my career,” he said.
Having such an intimate knowledge of the client, RUPA, has also helped Stu design a table which acknowledges a much-changed Australian Rugby landscape which features a professional team in five different states.
“The basis behind the design was to make sure it represented Australian Rugby appropriately,” Stu explains. “Visually, it is rectangular and serves the purpose of needing to fit as many people in the space as we could; it’s a fourteen-seat boardroom table. However, importantly each of the five states is represented with a timber that is symbolic of that part of Australia.
“We have a Blackbutt base, which is only found on the Australian East Coast, and has been chosen to represent NSW and Queensland. That was a great choice as it is a strong, sturdy timber, yet it also represents the two founding unions and hence why I have used it as the base; that’s a nice tie-in. The top is mainly Victorian Ash which is found in both the ACT and Victoria, and also Jarrah which is only found in the south-western forests of Western Australia.
“Finally, I have also used River Red Gum, which is from inland waterways Australia-wide and is a famous rural eucalypt. It represents country Rugby and is a unifying wood to tie everything back together; it was a really enjoyable brief and I am very happy with how it has all worked out.”
The table looks outstanding, and Pinkerton is completing a plaque which will take pride of place in the RUPA boardroom, explaining the origins of the different timbers. The table will host its’ first Annual General Meeting (AGM) later this month, and has also already hosted an all RUPA Staff Player Development Prorgram forum last week.
As for Pinkerton, he’s now back involved in Rugby in Newcastle, and absolutely loving it.
“I have just coached the victorious Newcastle Colts at the NSW Country Championships in Armidale, and I will look to do the same again with that team in 2017, while it’s also my third year as Assistant Coach of Wanderers in Newcastle,” he said. “That came after ten years of not really doing anything with Rugby.
“Even though I loved my Rugby career I did enjoy my time away from the game, doing lots of surfing and camping. It’s also hard to find the time for coaching when your kids are young, but now that they have grown up a bit I am back involved and I love what I’m doing with Wanderers.
“There’s some really good talent coming through, which will come as no surprise to most as Newcastle is a really good sporting town. It’s a town where on weekends or after work, people go out and train and play sport rather than sit at a café and look at each other, or read the paper. It’s a great place to live, and life is going very well for me.”
