How often have you heard a friend recounting a brilliant score or game and thought to yourself, ‘Whatever happened to that guy?’
Ireland has a pretty solid conversion rate for young talents and most of our finest teenagers get the chance to become provincial stars.
In recent years, most of the young lads you heard were destined for greatness have made the provincial and international breakthroughs. Joey Carbery, Jack O’Donoghue, Garry Ringrose and Stuart Olding to name but four.
Every now and then, however, there is an AJ MacGinty, a James Hart or a Mike Ross. A player that has to go abroad to get that crucial break.
And then there are the players that absolutely shone at school and underage level only to fade away.
Such age-grade and teenage sensations were expertly discussed in The Hard Yards [from 1:25] as Ronan O’Gara and Kevin McLaughlin recalled some of the ones that got away.
O’Gara went back to his earliest days playing the game and one name was clear as day.
“I remember who stood out at Under-8, 9 and Under-10 in Cork Con, it was ‘Get the ball to Jeff Casey’.
“It was like [Jonah] Lomu playing in white. At that stage, no-one could tackle him. He was a complete freak.”
At schools level, O’Gara recalls a scrum-half that played in that French style [playmaker and goal-kicker]. He commented:
“Eddie Hogan O’Connell… he was probably our best player.
“He was… anyone that who was more physically at that stage had a big advantage.”
Interestingly enough, Hogan O’Connell kept an active hand in rugby – as a referee.
McLaughlin says he was lucky enough to play at schools level [for Ireland] with Andrew Trimble and at the Junior World Cup with Stephen Ferris. Both Ulster tyros had the ‘X’ factor and both went on to star for Ireland at international level.
There was another player that McLaughlin recalled from his Leinster academy days that has since been lost to rugby. He said:
“There’s a fella that springs to mind – Vinny Gough. Maybe not the most skillful player I ever had the pleasure of playing with but he was an absolute beast at that age. It was just a case of getting the ball to him – a really soft pass so he could catch it – and letting him take off. He ran around fellas, ran over fellas and scored loads and loads of tries.
“At that age – 18 and 19 – if you were fast and really, really strong, and more physically developed, you got to the top an awful lot quicker.”
Gough didn’t make the final break-through at Leinster but he is doing well for himself now… as one of Ireland’s premier body-builders.
Good to know that rugby gave him the base.
