GAVIN CUMMISKEYtalks to Donnacha Ryan about his journey from club hurling to World Cup selection
IN MICHAEL Cheika’s first season at Leinster he was spotted on the grassy knoll overlooking the Belfield Bowl. UCD were playing Shannon and the Australian coach was there to spy on Trevor Hogan; an imminent arrival to the blue province from Munster.
But Cheika’s attention was drawn by the other Shannon lock. Donnacha Ryan was having a stormer. The current Stade Francais chief firmly believed if someone could feed this raw talent Ireland would have themselves a natural heir to Paul O’Connell. In the loose exchanges anyway.
Turns out another former Randwick coach had already taken on that very project.
“Alan Gaffney was slagging me this morning about when I started off playing rugby. I was only 92kgs and playing in the secondrow,” said a very happy Ryan last Monday in Carton House.
“He said: ‘Little did I know 10 years later you would be going to the World Cup.’
“I said, ‘Look what you have created.’ ”
Munster have since fattened their calf into a 108kg (16st 13lb) buffalo. Considering the surprise decisions to take Conor Murray and Fergus McFadden to Queenstown next Tuesday, the selection of the Nenagh man as flanker-cum-secondrow cover went almost unnoticed.
But Ryan has been through a hell of a dogfight these past few weeks with Kevin McLaughlin, Mike McCarthy – both regulars in the Leinster and Connacht line-ups – and, of course, more recently Thierry Dusautoir.
Munster coach Tony McGahan helped the 27-year-old to make the 30-man cut by using him ahead of Denis Leamy at blindside flanker at the tail end of last season.
It provided some essential exposure, as Ryan had been the fourth-string lock behind O’Connell, Donncha O’Callaghan and Mick O’Driscoll ever since Cheika spotted him obliterating UCD rucks over six years ago.
“It’s been a difficult situation in Munster. Being behind the lads I had to reinvent myself to get into the team. Not that the backrow lads were too happy to see me coming back there.
“Basically, (former Munster coach) Laurie Fisher told me it doesn’t matter where I play as long as I do the basics well and I’m professional.
“With two Lions ahead of me down in Munster I see my role as pushing them to the limit.”
The only time in recent memory that he could embrace the primary enforcer’s role in Munster red was against The All Blacks in 2008. He was in strange form that night, belting Jason Eaton in an early confrontation.
“Tony gave me a chance at the end of the season having come back from a nasty shoulder injury last year.
“Denis Leamy and myself were rehabbing every day. Funnily enough on Friday mornings, after we had sneaked out on Thursday nights, we would say: ‘think about a year’s time and where we’ll be.’ We said it jokingly but it came through.”
Polite and hilarious, you can tell from five minutes in his company that Ryan is a hard nut. But there is very little rugby in him, what with the aforementioned trio, injury slowing his progress and only taking up the game at 17.
Before that he was a Tipperary minor footballer and one of the Ryan hurlers from Nenagh GAA club.
Munster, or more accurately Shannon, unearthed this rough diamond, much like they did the man they call Gaillimh all those years ago. Ryan remains a GAA man at heart and has been caught sneaking back to play hurling when the club was short a body.
All that stopped when he was caught. “I’ve snuck back a few times playing hurling and got in trouble for it once because I ended up in the paper.”
An ultimatum followed from his Shannon coach. “I’m glad Ian Sherwin put a stop to that but sure I might get back to hurling after this.”
Ryan and Leamy will be up late on September 4th in search of a television screen.
The match against Russia is probably the only opportunity he will get during the pool stages. He is going to this World Cup as a dirt tracker – unless he can do something about it. His agility has never been in question. But Leamy is in the way. And Stephen Ferris. Seán O’Brien too. Then there is Leo Cullen, and the Munster old firm.
Still, he earned Kidney’s final approval by his showing on the flank against Dusautoir in Bordeaux. “It was a long walk from the changing rooms and I was alongside Dusautoir.
“It’s a sad state of affairs if you are admiring your opposition and what good shape he is in.
“There were two ways you go: be intimidated by his physique or knuckle down and do something about it. I chose the latter. I was disappointed to be taken off against Scotland so I just tried to play in a frenzy; be as aggressive as possible.”
Kidney has brought a workhorse, but, equally, he is a dark horse.
