GERRY THORNLEY profiles the versatile Australian who has taken the circuitous route to success and a coveted place with the European champions

IT’S AS if Paul Warwick’s life has completed a circle. Over a decade has passed since he started out on his rugby union career at Nudgee College in Brisbane, where his coach and PE teacher was Tony McGahan. Perhaps there’s even a hint of destiny about the pair of them ending up here.

The two Queenslanders have travelled slightly circuitous routes, each starting out in rugby league and veering back and forth between the two codes, the coach taking a detour via Japan and Warwick via Connacht.

McGahan was also Warwick’s geography teacher at Nudgee (as he would be to Rocky Elsom) and as the two of them look on from the balcony overlooking the basketball courts in the University of Limerick, the coach good-naturedly suggests that one of his star rugby pupils wasn’t the best academically. Warwick raises an inquisitive eye, as if to say ‘are you sure you want to go there?’

Later on, when you put McGahan’s theory to him, Warwick laughs. “God no way! He’s certainly to blame for my academic ability. Jesus! Some role model!” In any event, under McGahan’s tutelage, at 29 a stand-out talent is being fulfilled. Warwick’s glorious performance in the quarter-final against the Ospreys, was as well as he’s ever played in his life in what was, up to that point, the biggest game of his career. Now comes a bigger game still.

An easy-going and good-humoured Aussie, he is surprisingly softly spoken, almost unassuming and modest, yet clearly self-assured too and ambitious. He blew one chance at the pro game, and he intends maximising this chance of a lifetime to the hilt.

Warwick was born to play rugby of some form. His father, Bruce, was a winger who had a long, prolific rugby league career with North, Balmain and Cronolla. “He was a very good goal kicker, a ‘toepoker’,” laughs Warwick. “They called him Radar or something. He’s quick to remind me.

“No, he’s been a big influence in my career; very grounding. Whenever I’ve got success he’s been quick to pull me back and things like that. My mother (Christine) as well, she was a sports person. It’s a sporting family.”

His one older brother, Adam, also played rugby league professionally. Growing up in Brisbane, that was the code which the youngest Warwick was drawn to at his local club, Arana Hills, after initially taking to soccer more. “Then I went to a private school and rugby is more private school-based in Australia,” he explains. “That’s when the rugby got serious, and obviously Tony was a part of that. We won two premierships in my two years with him.”

In such a sporting family, sport usually took precedence.

“I remember Dad telling a story about the family sitting around one night and talking about Leaving Cert scores, which we call OP scores in Australia, and Dad wasn’t too concerned because he just had a belief that I had the ability to make it in rugby . . . he just had that belief and support behind me, backing what I wanted to do and making sure I used that ability in the right way.”

“Mum would be more the advice giver, Dad would sit back,” he adds, laughing, “But no, we’re very competitive, my brother and I, and Dad would be putting up high balls and I would be trying to take him for money, as much money as we could, (by) catching them. No, it was good.”

However, the sheer intensity of a two-month Australian schools tour to Canada and the four home unions – through the depths of December and January – veered him from a rugby union contract with the Queensland Reds to the Brisbane Broncos.

“It was intense, and my rugby at Nudgee was very intense. We had training up to nine or 10 sessions a week.

“We obviously got a lot of results out of it but I was literally exhausted and needed a change. I had always played rugby league as a kid and loved it and to play for the Broncos was obviously a goal and to be part of that was fantastic. I’d have to attribute a lot of my success to that. Rocky Elsom is the same. It hardens you up a bit.”

But after two years with the Broncos he reverted to union and took up a two-year offer with the Reds, where he saw more of a pathway.

Warwick is candid in his assessment of the next two years. Basically, he blew it.

“I know I had the ability to make it. I look back and look at fellows around me that have made it. But I got things very easy, took advantage of that; a young fella that probably partied too much and did all the wrong things, but I’m glad that I learned from that. I would have loved to have been a success straight away but it makes a bit more worthwhile when you’ve gone through an ‘up’ and a ‘down’ side.”

Now in his fifth season in Ireland, when Connacht first signed him it was in the hope the IRB might relax on its regulation that playing international sevens for one country debars a player from declaring for anyone else.

Because of the IRB’s campaign to have sevens included in the Olympics, the game’s governing body felt they had to show sevens was rigidly controlled.

Even though he’d assuredly have made the Irish squad by now, he has no regrets really about playing on the world sevens’ circuit and venues such as Hong Kong, LA, Wellington, Singapore, Dubai, London. He loved the lifestyle, the travelling, the five-star hotels, the chance to see the world and sevens itself.

“Yeah, potentially,” he says modestly of the possibility that he might have represented Ireland, before adding: “For a young fella then, travelling the world and big stadiums, big crowds. I love sevens. It’s a great game. I wouldn’t disagree with the current rule but if it changed and it meant I could play at a higher level I’d certainly be well interested.”

After the Reds failed to offer him a new contract, Warwick mixed the sevens circuit with a year at Manly, and he loved the coastal life in north Sydney. “It was good. It was different. I was by myself and didn’t have family and probably grew up a lot. I was still partying a bit and enjoying life.

“But after losing the contract you kind of get that realisation, ‘what am I doing with my life?’ I was very fortunate when Andy Farley gave me that phone call to come over.”

Farley, a team-mate and mate on the Aussie schools team, was with Connacht at the time and, on his recommendation, Michael Bradley signed Warwick. His parents took a little convincing mind, the two arriving in Galway for a game against Munster in the Sportsground which Munster won 3-0.

“It was like ‘whatever you’re getting paid it’s not enough’. It was just atrocious. Ah, but, you get that. It’s part of Northern Hemisphere rugby, the weather. It’s enjoyable. And when the sun comes out here it’s a fantastic place to live.”

His first, hugely prolific two years there were better than his third, when he moved between 10, 13, 15 and the bench.

“I loved my time in Galway. It was brilliant. A lot of nice fellas and it’s a lovely place to live. I’d do it again. I think I needed a few years to learn the game.”

With Connacht, Warwick stood out as something of a free spirit, with a daring running and passing game at outhalf which, he concedes, was possibly a bit too daring at times.

“If I’ve learned anything it’s a bit of patience and that there’s a time and a place for everything. I can’t say a bad word about being up there to be honest.”

But he entered a new world with Munster. “The work ethic. That’s the biggest thing. People go on about the secret here. It’s not, it’s hard work and it’s demanded of you and if you don’t live up to it you get found out very quickly and you just won’t get used. So you’ve got to put in 100 per cent nearly every time you’re out there.”

“I always wanted to be a part of a big club, once in my life anyway. It’s a special place definitely and the quicker you buy into the ethos of working hard and the red jersey, the traditions and things like that, the faster you are accepted. I like to think that I’ve done that.”

Teething problems included trying to emulate Ronan O’Gara. “I tried to play like Ronan and once I figured out that’s not my job I think I relaxed a bit and started kicking better and running the game a lot better and my way.”

His wife, Carol, is from Mallow and they have a daughter, Lea. Ideally, he didn’t really want to uproot them to London next season, but had committed to doing so by agreeing a two-year deal with London Irish simply because there was only one year on offer initially from Munster.

“The security of a two-year contract was huge. It was important that I found a team that had a bit of cutting edge and a coach in Tony Booth that was innovative. The lure of starting at number 10 was also there so it seemed like a good fit. But the minute that the IRFU relaxed on the foreign rule and Munster offered me a two-year deal I wanted to stay. We’ve got a great support network here with Carol’s family here and obviously the set-up here.”

These are the best days of his career so far, not just being part of something special, but an integral part at last.

“It’s a special place to play rugby and just to be a part of it. I’m probably playing the best rugby I have ever played and to be assisting with Ronan in controlling what’s happening is a great honour for me.”

McGahan, Laurie Fisher, Jason Holland, Anthony Foley, he reels off the coaches and talks about the quality of the coaching and the emphasis on skills.

“They showed a clip there this morning where Marcus Horan and Jerry Flannery retreated back off a kick and we spun the ball for them on the wings and made good space. It’s a standard thing right across the board, not just relying on guys at 10 and 12 doing all the passing.”

McGahan also saw enough in Warwick’s cultured kicking game to utilise that resource in their second match. Warwick showed how ill-advised it can be for opposing halves to box kick to him, given his long-range drop goals on the run are already something of a trademark, and he also demonstrated his footwork and eye for the try-line that day. He was restored to fullback for their penultimate match at home to Sale

As a converted playmaker, he has added another dimension to Munster’s game, and gives them an alternative playmaking role to O’Gara which suits McGahan’s ambitious approach just fine.

“I think it’s just most of the talent we have on the field, like Lefiemi Mafi, Keith Earls are outstanding ball carriers and it makes sense for them to by running onto my pass and vice versa and if, we can, take a bit of pressure off Ronan by moving the play a bit wider and vice versa with him. It’s been successful at the minute and it’s great that I bring that to the table.”

His new contract keeps him with Munster until he’s 31. He would like to finish his career with them but also leave an even more indelible imprint.

“With my wife being Irish, we’re very happy here. Things are going really well in the team and it’s great to be a part of that . . . Down the track maybe I’d definitely like to have a crack at a season at least at number 10 and see where that leads me.”