Tipp tornado braced to hit Down Under

FROM wiry teenage hurler to a Rugby World Cup forward, there is still more than a touch of the Tipperary fanatic in Donnacha Ryan as he prepares for the trip of his life to New Zealand next week.

Ryan, 27, completed his eight-year journey from inter-county hopeful to rugby’s highest stage on Monday when he was named in Ireland’s 30-man squad to take on the world Down Under next month, a decade of toil which brought back memories for both him and Ireland assistant coach Alan Gaffney, his former head coach at Munster.

“I was playing senior for Nenagh and I was told to put on a bit of weight if I was going to be considered for the Tipp minors,” Ryan recalled.

“Alan Gaffney was slagging me this morning. When I was starting off playing rugby, I was about 19 and I was 92kg trying to play in the second row. He stripped me down to my boxers down in UL, and he said ‘Little did I know that 10 years later you would be going to a World Cup!’ I said ‘I know, look what you’ve created!’”

A late starter to rugby, Ryan, who also played Tipp minor football, took longer to get rid of the hurling bug than he did piling on the kilos for second-row duty.

“The jerseys were getting tighter when I snuck back a few times playing hurling, not recently, but when I was 22 I had a full [Munster] contract and went back playing, and it ended up in the paper!

“I got caught once, [Munster academy coach] Ian Sherwin caught me. He picked up the Nenagh Guardian and saw my name, saw that I scored two points. He said to make a choice or you can pack your bags and go play hurling.

“I’m glad he put a stop to it now, but I live in hope that I’ll go back playing hurling when I’m finished. We’ll see.”

Ryan, his 6ft 6ins frame now carrying 108kg, has plenty more to give to the oval-ball code, and going to a World Cup for the first time with Ireland makes missing Tipp’s All-Ireland final dates at Croke Park next month with the senior hurlers and minor footballers a small sacrifice.

“I’ll have to get up in the middle of the night to watch it, but I’ll have [Denis] Leamy down there to watch it with,” he said. “We were at it last year, so we’ll survive this.”

Given Ryan’s elation at being named in Declan Kidney’s squad, the lock/back row could probably survive anything, although he admitted there had been considerable relief last Monday.

“If I could calm down at the moment now, I’d be okay,” the grinning Munster forward said. “I’m still very excited. You’re listening to the names being called out in alphabetical order and you’re still hoping. I was delighted.

“The last number of weeks have been stressful as you try to put your name forward and do as much work as possible. I can’t believe it, really; I’m over the moon and delighted for all of the people who got me started playing rugby.

“They have been texting me and wishing me well.”

Ryan is entitled to celebrate his success after overcoming a series of obstacles, not least Munster’s stalwarts in the back five of the pack. He had two Lions, Paul O’Connell and Donncha O’Callaghan, in firm possession of the second row positions and a bevy of Heineken Cup winners in the back row but kept plugging away, winning an AIL title with Shannon and biding his time.

“It’s been a difficult situation behind the lads, and I had to try and reinvent myself to get into the team. Playing in the back row is an option; the back-row lads weren’t too happy to see me coming back there.

“Laurie Fisher said to me that ‘it doesn’t matter where you play, as long as you do the basics well and be a proper professional you can make the team’. That’s what I’ve focused on. The way I look at my role is that I have two Lions ahead of me so it’s up to me to drive them as hard as I can and push them to the limit.

“Tony McGahan gave me a chance towards the end of the season. A year ago I had a very nasty shoulder injury. Denis Leamy and myself were rehabbing every day. We were joking on Friday mornings, after we’d sneak out on Thursday nights, ‘Think of a year’s time and this [the World Cup squad] is where we’ll be!’

“We said it jokingly and I didn’t think it would come true. You can have a lot of setbacks but it’s those setbacks that force you to drive on to better things.”

Getting the better of Mike McCarthy and Kevin McLaughlin for that versatile lock/back row spot was his focus.

“The two guys are fantastic players. Mike McCarthy is an absolutely sound guy and so is Kev. You’d be even watching them in training and seeing if you could pick up on things that they do better and try to develop your own game, too.

“One thing I’ve probably been guilty of in the past, being behind Paul and Donncha, is trying to play like other players instead of just focusing on what attributes I would have. I narrowed my focus and said ‘focus on what you do best, you’ve got this far on what you have so you may as well try and have a bit more belief in yourself’.

“They are top-class players and it’s unfortunate that everyone can’t go. It was a tough battle.”