Where Are They Now? | Hefin O’Hare

• 10 Jul 2020

From wing wizard to property developer - we caught up with Warrior #143 Hefin O'Hare earlier this season, as he told Warrior what he's been up to since retirement...

After I
finished up at Glasgow, I went into building surveying. I’d been doing a
university degree throughout the latter stages of my career, and that led to a
job in Glasgow. I then moved a bit closer to our family home in Fife and got a
job in Dunfermline, and I’m working for a firm called Hardies, who merged with
Shepherds. I’m a building surveyor with them now – we do everything from
looking after people’s properties to doing them up, or knocking them down if
needs be.

In rugby,
there are a lot of people that go into property or do up a house. I’ve done up
five houses now, and I like the property development aspect of it. I wanted to
know what I was talking about, and that’s led into other things along the way –
I’m now the head of the energy department at Hardies.

You have an
awkward amount of free time when you’re playing rugby. You’re not free at the
weekends for obvious reasons, but you’ll have a bit of time during the week
where you’ll find yourself at a loose end quite a lot of the time. Bar doing a
degree, I always had a lot of energy to go and do other things, and that’s how
I got into property developing.

I bought an
old farmhouse in Fife and I’m currently doing that up with my family. That’s
very much an extra-curricular activity though! The day is usually wake up, have
breakfast with the kids, go to work, come home and get back to renovating the
house. We’re doing alright at the minute!

I think I’ll
always be busy to be honest. I saw a show on retirement the other day and
couldn’t comprehend it really – I don’t think I’ve got it in me to go and just
relax on a beach somewhere! I’ve just got too much energy for that. I’ve got
three boys now, Rowan, Rory and Angus – eight, six and four years old
respectively. They take up most of my time these days anyway!

I’ll always
watch the Warriors on TV and see how they’re getting on. It’s hard once you get
out of the playing lifestyle to keep up with everyone, so I really enjoyed
being back at Scotstoun for the game against the Southern Kings at the start of
November. It’s funny – rugby is the type of community where you might not see
some people for three or four years, and then you’ll walk into a room with them
and it’ll be exactly the same as it always was. That’s such a good thing about
the sport – it’s just a really good feeling. It was good to catch up with
everyone, have a couple of beers and watch the game.

The game’s
moved on since I retired! There are a lot of big, strong lads out there. I’d
love to play in this Warriors team, but I think my body would let me down. I
had a shoulder reconstruction after retiring – I’d actually hurt it whilst
playing, but it got to the point where it was affecting me in everyday life.
Thankfully I was pretty lucky with injuries during my career, because I was one
of the little fast guys who could keep away from the big ugly ones!

This interview originally appeared in Issue Two of Warrior, the official magazine of Glasgow Warriors