Ian Prior - From Africa to elite sport, and how the journey always has other plans for us

Ian Prior is a professional rugby union player. Ian spent part of his childhood in Zimbabwe before returning to Australia, a duality that would define one of the most extraordinary late career chapters in Australian sporting history.

The story goes that Mum and Dad tell, like, you know, first game rugby, super excited.

Yeah.

Grew up playing with cousins and, um, [lip smacks] neighbors that were a bit older than me playing rugby, playing tackle.

Yeah.

Super excited.

Yeah.

Come home from training, very disappointed.

Yeah.

Mum and Dad went, "You know, what's going on?" "Oh, I've, you know, been picked for the D team."

Yeah.

"I'm a lock." "Oh, that's okay, boy. Like, keep working hard."

Yeah.

You know, like you never know it could go.

Yeah.

And it was the following train- yeah, it was the following training session, um, came back. Dad's like, "Yeah, how'd you go? How was training?" I said, "Oh, Dad, I'm actually, um, scrum half and I'm A team and I'm captain." Dad's like, "Come on, mate. Like, it's okay if you are in the D team."

Yeah.

"Like, you know, we still love you. We still proud of you"

Yeah. [laughs]

... and that stuff. And I was like, "No, Dad, I am."

Yeah.

He didn't believe me till we got to the game. Yeah, was playing in here 2023, 2024 at the Force. Knew my time was finishing up at the Force and they reached out again, you know, said, "Hey, we got this Africa Cup. This tournament in 2024 is really important for the next year, which is the qualifying tournament because it ranks us and we need to be in the top four or there's no World Cup dream." So yeah, kind of sat with it for a bit and just thought, "You know, it's now or never. Why not give it a crack?"

Mm.

You know, I don't know how much input I'll have or, you know, how much of an impact I'll be able to make, but I can go there and, you know, hopefully have some kind of meaningful impact, whether it's from the bench mentoring, whatever it may be. I, I thought last year in 2025 when I finished up, 'cause it was a lot of time away from family, a lot of sacrifice, I thought, "Maybe this is a bit too much."

Mm.

"Is it having too much impact on losing the kids?"

Yeah.

Um, so I thought, "Maybe that's me done. Maybe I won't go to the World Cup, you know, finish on a high." Um, might be a good way to bow out. And I remember walking through the gates, um, at Perth International Airport and there was my daughter with a banner which she'd made on her own.

Yeah.

Uh, that my wife said she had asked, you know, "Can we make Daddy a we- a welcome home banner?"

Yeah.

And it said, and I've still got the photo, so it says, "Welcome home, Daddy. World Cup, here we come." You know, six year old and I was like, "Oh."

Gotta go now.

You know, gotta keep going. [laughs] I, I started crying.

Yeah.

Like at the moment it's all, all guns blazing, all eggs in the basket and try and get to the World Cup.

Yeah.

And then obviously trying to improve myself and the value I bring to Medal.

Yeah.

Trying to develop my skillset there, get better at that, um, and challenge myself in different arenas. And the one thing that's probably my big takeaway from my career that I wish I'd done better when I reflect on now, wish I'd done earlier, was...

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