“He’s unbelievably talented, and he’s flying.”
There is a great Sportsfile snap, taken a day before the All Blacks were defeated, last November, of the Ireland players knocking great craic out of Dan Sheehan and Rónan Kelleher being late for the official match-day squad photo.
The likes of James Ryan, Caelan Doris and Ryan Baird, who know both lads so well, as enjoying the moment. Some of the veteran players are giving the young bucks a ‘hurry on’ glare. They were not the first to be late for a team photo, but you best belief their teammates made then pay somehow.
Kelleher is eight months older than Sheehan and made his Leinster debut in 2019, a season before his fellow hooker. Between them, they have only played 53 times for Leinster, so far, and have 26 tries. At this stage, you almost can’t have one without the other.
Coming into the 2022 Six Nations, Sheehan was backing up Kelleher. That all changed when Kelleher injured his shoulder in the away loss to France. In came his fellow Dubliner and it was business as usual. Sheehan got a Test match land for some of the scrummaging battles against England, at Twickenham, but finished the championship with a man-of-the-match display against Scotland.
If both hookers can get some injury luck over the coming years, Leinster and Ireland will be deep in clover.
On the latest House of Rugby [LISTEN from 6:40 below], Greg O’Shea and Jason Hennessy were joined by Leinster hooker James Tracy, who explained what it is like to train with both lads, and battle them for the No.2 jersey.
James Tracy on “incredible” Dan Sheehan and Rónan Kelleher
It did not take Rónan Kelleher long to establish himself as a hooker with world-class potential. The younger brother of winger Cian Kelleher, he made his Leinster debut in February 2019. His true break-through season was the 2019/20 [13 appearances, nine tries].
By the end of 2020/21 he was called in to train with the British & Irish Lions, before he was called up as a fully-fledged Lion later that summer, in South Africa. Dan Sheehan made his senior Leinster debut in October 2020, and 10 of his first 13 appearances were off the bench.
He has made eight outings for Leinster this season [only three starts] as he has been in camp for Ireland’s Autumn Nations Series and Six Nations. In his entire professional career to date, then, he has just nine starts. He has looked right at home at Test level, though. James Tracy is not surprised.
“He’s unbelievably talented, and he’s flying,” says Tracy. “He has gotten his opportunity and took it with both hands.
“Thank God these guys have come along now, rather than five years ago, or I wouldn’t have half the career that I have now!
“They’re both very, very talented. I wish I had bad words to say about them, but I don’t! They’re good guys, as well.
“We’re competitive with each other… We definitely got off to a prickly start, but that’s the competitiveness of it all. That’s how it goes. After a while, you get to know each other more and those early feelings subside, and there’s definitely respect for each other. At the end of the day, what you do on the field does your talking for you.”
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Tracy says himself and the likes of Sean Cronin and Peter Dooley would always be on hand to share some advice or do extras with the young hookers, especially when they were breaking into the Leinster team.
“These two lads are absolutely killing it,” he adds. “There’s probably nothing that I would do on a day that they would learn, because they are both excelling.”
The big battle for Rónan Kelleher, once he gets back to full fitness, is bumping Dan Sheehan back out of the starting-line. To think that Leinster also have Tracy, Dooley and the 72-cap Cronin to call on tells you all you need about how well stocked that larder is.
WATCH HOUSE OF RUGBY HERE:
