Read how Fergus got on in his 2nd week at OPRO. What seems like an incredible journey just keeps getting better. From elite rugby player to understanding sports marketing.

OPRO have really embraced the concept of supporting me, to understand their business and develop my skills. They are ensuring that I get exposure to all aspects of the business, have an understanding of what they’re about, how they run their business and the impact I can make. In preparation for my second day I received an agenda from Lia, head of HR, which is ideal as it allows me to prepare questions or ideas I may have for the next day.

This morning started off with a run down through the rest of the heads of departments I didn’t see last week including Sales, International Sales and E-Commerce.

But first it was a meeting with the MD, David Allen, who has agreed to mentor me throughout my work experience. You only have to look at David’s CV to know this is the guy who I need to follow, he spent 15 years at Nike introducing their football range to this country and working on projects such as Ronaldo CR7 vs the Bugatti Veyron. He also held the position of Senior Vice President at the UFC, which just speaks for itself.

We discussed what David had introduced over the last 12-18 months including the introduction of online sales and his vision for where OPRO can get to. A truly brilliant vision, which gets you pretty pumped up. I feel like he would be very good at team talks at Irish!

Next stop was an E-commerce meeting where my mind was absolutely blown with numbers, the team were very good to me and I was told there was no such thing a stupid question for me in that meeting, thank god! Needless to say it was all explained very well and Daniel, the sports marketing director, showed me how the impact of the recent sports marketing deals with various sports, associations and federations can be illustrated in the sales numbers.

One thing I will mention at this point is that work experience for any player who is injured is perfect, it takes your mind completely off any problems you may be suffering with your body and allows you to concentrate on your role at the company. I tore my ankle ligaments 4/5 weeks ago and yesterday I had a setback in my rehab, I was thinking and worrying about the injury a lot, but being in a completely different environment pulls you away from injuries worries for at least a day which I thought was brilliant.

I sat down late morning with the other head of departments who gave me a general overview of what they’re working on at the moment and the general focus for them over the next few months. A good insight for me to have. They seemed to be gearing up for the ISPO which is the world’s largest international Multi-Segment Exhibition for the Sports Industry. This would be their coming out party for their partnership with the UFC, where they will have one of the biggest stands at the show. It includes a UFC ring hung above the stand and a UFC championship belt for customers to have their picture with. A big statement from OPRO to introduce themselves into the combat world.

The afternoon was spent with Daniel running through various contracts they had with sporting teams and associations. These were generally supplier or licensing agreements and a few ambassador agreements. All were very detailed and outlined what they would receive from OPRO in return for what they could provide.

This was followed up by Daniels targets and contracts he’s working on, areas which I hope to help with over the coming months. It’s weird because for some reason I never thought I’d make or use any of my contacts through rugby and now it looks like I’ll be using them on my first project away from the sport!

I can’t wait for what the future may hold with OPRO and what they have got in-store for me as this experience continues!