Ireland sevens boss not ruling out switches from XVs for Paris

TOPP-MAN: Men's head coach James Topping poses for a portrait during the Ireland media day ahead of the HSBC SVNS Season at IRFU High Performance Centre at the Sport Ireland Campus in Dublin. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile

Ireland men’s sevens coach, James Topping, has spoken to IRFU performance director David Nucifora about the possibility of bringing some XVs players into the shorter-form of the game for next year’s Olympic Games.

The revelation that Antoine Dupont is set to skip the Six Nations with a view to featuring for France in next summer’s tournament has focused the spotlight on a version of the game that tends to live in the shadows.

Damian Penaud, Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Sekou Macalou have also been mentioned as possible transfers from France’s XVs ranks while former Wallaby captain Michael Hooper has been confirmed for the 2024 event.

All of which has prompted thoughts of what might be possible here.

Making it happen would not be easy with XVs players facing a busy schedule of URC, Champions Cup and Six Nations duties between now and Paris next year, but Leinster coach Leo Cullen did declare himself open-minded on it.

“It’s the guys you would have more control over, the … players on an Irish contract,” Topping suggested. “They would have more of a say on what they do. The balancing act for a lot of them is what have they achieved so far in rugby, what do they want to achieve.

“Maybe the younger ones wouldn’t see this as such a good move, as a stepping stone. Maybe the more established guys see this as an opportunity because they know they could go back into 15-a-side straight away and it wouldn’t be a waste of their time. It would be something they could add onto their CV.”

Time isn’t an ally here. There are only eight events on the HSBC World Series this season and the Olympics are just eight months away. The men’s and the women’s teams are already qualified, but there is no free hit in the short-term with Series relegation still in play.

Topping takes phone calls all the time from players who fancy a crack at sevens but anyone interested in migrating over from XVs would have to “make a value impact” on what is already a very skilled and slick operation.

Some would suit it, he explained, others just wouldn’t.

Among the former are those who have prospered at the short-form before – Hugo Keenan, Jimmy O’Brien, Rob Baloucoune and Shane Daly - before making the switch to the top end of the XVs arena, but Keenan has already ruled himself out.

“You’ve got to earn your spot. It’s a big learning curve,” said Topping who represented Ireland at both forms of the game and knows how difficult the switch is in terms of skillset, aerobic fitness and mentality.

“You are after the ball the whole time. There’s not too much repositioning without the ball. You have to be involved in the game the whole time. Guys have to get their heads around that.

"The beauty of our guys is because they do it all the time, they are instinctive and that’s the way sevens is played.” How all this would play out with the existing squad is just as relevant.

Their first crack at an Olympics ended in a disappointing pool exit in Tokyo two years ago but Ireland’s men have since taken up residency on the World Series circuit where they ended the last campaign in eighth place.

A bronze at the Rugby Sevens World Cup 14 month ago was the chief signifier to date of the enormous potential within a group which, Topping admitted, will be gunning for a podium place come their time in the French capital.

Players like Terry Kennedy and Jordan Conroy once dreamed of careers in the XVs game but sevens is now their sport, their playground. There wouldn’t be anyone among them of a mind to step meekly aside if it came to it.

“They don’t see it maybe as such as a pathway anymore. They’ve sort of passed that route. It’s definitely their sport. There’s a few tough guys in our squad who will be hard to push out, if it came to it. And that’s what you want to do, to push them that wee bit as well.”