There is a lot of speculation about Tiernan O’Halloran’s future but his sporting past is just as interesting.
The Connacht and Ireland fullback is out of contract next summer and has found himself linked with a switch to Munster. With Simon Zebo heading off for France and Connacht already looking outsiders for Champions Cup rugby next season, O’Halloran could find an offer hard to refuse.
He is keen to get back in the mix with Ireland after missing the November internationals and, in October, chatted with Joe Schmidt about what he needs to do to get back in the Test reckoning.
O’Halloran recently joined The Hard Yards and [from 25:30 below] told us about his GAA background, playing underage for Leinster against Connacht and how the province was left reeling when Pat Lam announced he was leaving.
Recognised now as an attacking, exciting fullback, O’Halloran actually started off as a hooker and won ‘Forward of the Year’ at his club before taking a stretch and heading into the backline. He played with Connacht’s U15 and U16 teams but rugby was not his only love.
His father, Aidan O’Halloran [pictured below playing Dublin in 1980], played inter-county for Westmeath before switching to the Offaly footballers and winning an All-Ireland with them in 1982. O’Halloran Sr. has remarked that his departure from Westmeath is still a touchy subject in some necks of the county.
O’Halloran spoke about his own GAA career:
“I played with Clifden, all the way up at underage, and played Ted Webb [Cup] for Galway City & West. I was on the Galway Minor panel for two years as well. At that stage, as I was getting to that Minor age of 17 and 18, I probably started leaning more towards rugby.
“It was mainly because I had changed from Garbally to Roscrea and there was no senior Gaelic football team, so I was basically trying to do all my own training and trying to keep up to speed to play minor level. It didn’t really work. At that stage, then, I was on a bit of a decline when it came to trying to play county level for the Minors. I wasn’t up to where I would have liked to have been. That made me choose rugby, in the long run.”
That schools switch to Roscrea led to another quirk in O’Halloran’s sporting career. Despite the fact that he had trained with the Connacht academy as a 17-year-old, he was then selected to play for Leinster U18s in an interpro series. That was because Roscrea had been competing in the Leinster Senior Cup.
“Even though I had been training in The Sportsground that summer, I knew I’d be playing for Leinster that September. It was a strange one but I still give the lads a bit of slagging over it. Leinster won the game by 30 or 40 points. We were playing against Jack Carty, Dave Heffernan and some of those guys. I let them know that the odd time!”
He was back with Connacht U20s the following season and, in 2009, came into the senior squad on a developmental deal. Squad numbers were light so Eric Elwood soon had him taking his first steps in professional rugby and he was away.
Highlights along the way were some memorable Heineken and Champions Cup victories, getting called up for Ireland, regular wins over rival provinces and the 2015/16 PRO12 league victory. Within a season, though, all had been tipped on its head again as head coach Pat Lam announced to the squad he was leaving for Bristol. O’Halloran said:
“The day Pat announced it we all sat down in the changing room. Just the players and Pat. There a lot of words said in that room that were incredibly harsh and incredibly tough. After that meeting, we said we’d just leave it at that and try to look forward and be positive but, as I think you can seem, there were just small things creeping in… there was a feeling that people just wanted to get onto the next step.”
The next step arrived late into the 2017/18 pre-season and Kieran Keane is taking his time to settle in yet. Earlier this season, Connacht were boosted by two Challenge Cup wins to get their PRO14 campaign back on track.
How they could do with that again ahead of the crucial, festive interpros.
