Ambitious Culhane happy to pick up where left off at Sportsground
Leinster's James Culhane. Pic: Tom Maher/Inpho
James Culhane could be forgiven if this week’s trip to Galway was to give some pause for thought.
It was at the Sportsground in early December of last year when a hugely promising run at No.8 for Leinster came to a juddering halt.
Connacht that day was his sixth appearance of the season, the fifth from the first whistle.
This represented massive chunks of time and experience for a kid still aged 20 and part of the academy. Then he fractured his shoulder and tore his hamstring within minutes of each other. He didn’t play again all season.
“There is a bit of trauma there,” he said with a half-smile. “I think my hamstring is still somewhere around the 22-metre line of that pitch.”
To do one of those injuries was unfortunate, to suffer them both was ludicrously bad luck.
He had been due to come off after injuring the shoulder, until Max Deegan needed attention for a blood injury and he was given the signal to soldier through a few more minutes.
“Then we scored a try and I caught the kickoff and right before I was to come off two lads jumped on my shoulder and I just went to step off my left leg and I felt it pop. I’ve never had an injury like that before so I knew there was something seriously wrong here.
“Then the scan said it all,” he explained. “I kind of went from a hundred to zero because I had never had an injury like that in my life - and then did the worst thing I could possibly do and it was straight into surgery.”
Bad as it was, he got through it.
College helped. Culhane is pursuing a course in electrical engineering while trying to make it as a professional rugby player.
It’s a huge commitment in and of itself, a 40-hour-per-week course that did at least fill the gap left by rugby through his rehab.
“I wasn’t just feeling sorry for myself the whole time. I’ve done well so far and I don’t think my parents would ever let me quit the college side of things so I am forced to do it,” he joked.
Culhane’s dad Paul captained Ireland’s U21s. The son was named player of the Six Nations championship after starring for the U20s in 2022. Rugby is in the bones and the Sportsground setback wasn’t his first.
That U20 Six Nations medal hadn’t long been pocketed when he required four weeks in hospital due to acute kidney failure brought on by over-training and dehydration.
He leaned on his college work back then too.
Then, as now, he followed on his stroke of bad luck with an Emerging Ireland tour to South Africa. Culhane impressed on the inaugural trip in 2022 and he played a big role again on the three-match follow-up that concluded just last week.
He finished the tour wearing the armband against the Cheetahs in Blomfontein. That was nothing new for a 21-year-old who captained sides all the way up through schools rugby and even the Leinster senior side in pre-season friendlies this last two summers.
Now it’s time to kick on again.
“Definitely. Emerging Ireland was another stepping stone and to get more leadership experience, especially in that final game, which was huge.
“It’s time now to push into this Leinster team, and it’s pretty obvious once you’re in a Leinster team that you’ll find yourself in an Irish squad, so that’s the goal, especially in my first year of senior. I’m trying to make some moves.”
He knows there is a road still to travel, making note himself of the fact that he hasn’t even played in Europe for Leinster yet. Back row is a ridiculously competitive area too but this is clearly someone who coaches at club and national level see as a leader going forward.
Stuart Lancaster, the former Leinster senior coach, observed that Leinster is full of polite and quiet personality types. Culhane is no blast from the past either as he explains a leadership style that works by consensus and calm rather than fear and bluster.
“There’s personalities in every group, which is great. The most important thing in a team is that you create an environment where people can show their personality and express themselves. If they are comfortable to talk then they are comfortable in their own skin on the pitch.
“It is the role of the coaches and the wider leadership group to create that because sometimes, especially as a young lad coming through, you are a bit nervous until you show your personality in the group.
"When people are open about that it is easier. There is definitely some good personality coming through.”
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