“It must be something about me. I just can’t seem to get a nickname.”
Mack Hansen has been playing top level sport – at underage and professional – for around a decade now but still goes by ‘Mack’. At least, he admits, that is what people call him when he is in their presence.
“I love giving them out but I never receive them,” the Connacht winger tells us. “People just aren’t clever enough!”
During his interview with Jason Hennessy, which covered his Grand Slam tattoo plans and details on the infamous party bus celebrations – Hansen touched upon the nicknames of two Ireland teammates as he was singing their praises.
Hugo Keenan and Caelan Doris were the two Ireland players that were added to the senior squad’s leadership group, earlier this year, showing further signs of their importance to the team. As a duo, though, they have great nicknames.
Ireland players, from left, James Lowe, Hugo Keenan and Mack Hansen. (Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile)Mack Hansen on Ireland squad nicknames
After the 2023 Six Nations, which ended with a Grand Slam, Mack Hansen was nominated for Player of the Championship, along with Ireland teammates Hugo Keenan and Caelan Doris.
Antoine Dupont ended up winning that accolade but when we caught up with Hansen, he was keen to stress that one of the two Leinster stars were deserving of it. With it, he gave up their nicknames with the Ireland squad. Hansen said:
“Either Bogsy or Barry, that’s what they call them. Bogsy is Doris and Barry is Hugo.
“I don’t know where Bogsy came from. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be saying that, or if it’s something rude. I don’t know where Barry came from either. I just rocked up [to Ireland training] and that was it.
“I haven’t called Caelan ‘Caelan’ or Hugo ‘Hugo’ in God knows how long. I only know them as Bogsy and Barry.”
“Either or, I genuinely couldn’t pick one,” he replied, when pressed to single out one of his teammates for that top honour.
“I’d be a pretty shit bloke if I did pick one, because them they’d know who I like better! They were both great. I was lucky enough to have two pretty good games but they played out of their skins for all five games.”
The Mack Hansen chat was reminiscent of when Tadhg Furlong revealed the nicknames for the Leinster starting pack from the 2018 Champions Cup final win over Racing 92.
As the victorious Leinster squad flew back to Dublin, from Bilbao, the tighthead prop gave social media shout-outs to Church, Nugget, The Big Cheese, Dev, Fardo, The Big Leaf and Nordi Murphy while referring to himself as ‘a humble farmer from Wexford’.
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