Jackman hooked on success

FOR many years, the only hooker outside of Leeson Street that most followers of Irish rugby would have recognised was the shiny-domed Keith Wood.

With Woodie's injury however, along came the crew-cut Frankie Sheahan, swiftly followed by the hirsute Shane Byrne, and we were becoming spoiled for choice. Well, move over lads, because somewhere between the lot above in the follicle department, there's another trying to muscle his considerable frame into that hooker equation.

Meet Bernard Jackman, recently of English Premiership side Sale Sharks, but this season returned to his senior rugby roots in Clontarf and set the AIL on fire. In excess of 17 stone and 6'1", Jackman has just been added to an extended international training squad, the result of a scorching AIL campaign with table-toppers Clontarf.