Hayes ‘great loss to Irish rugby’
Yet Eoin Reddan, who played alongside the Bull’s younger brother during their formative days together in Munster, believes the Exeter Chiefs lock would be more than capable of stepping up to the international stage if given the chance.
Hayes has played a pivotal role in Exeter’s rise from English rugby’s second tier to a point this Saturday where they will make their Heineken Cup debut against Leinster at the RDS.
Recognition for those achievements have been restricted largely to the UK. Last year was just the club’s second in the Premiership and their skipper from Bruff was rewarded for his considerable input towards an eighth-place finish with not just a place on the league’s team of the season but the captaincy of it to boot.
A few days later his coach, Rob Baxter, made the point — tongue in cheek, perhaps — that he was eligible to qualify for England under the game’s residency laws and that then England coach Martin Johnson would do well to sound him out for the Red Rose.
“He’s proven that [he is international-class] over the years,” said Reddan, “particularly last year in the Premiership.
“International class is tough to say if you’re comparing him to who’s playing but if you’re asking me [then] of course he could play at international level.
“He’s proven himself something like 194 times in-a-row right now. He’d definitely be able to play, either for England or Ireland,” he joked.
“I don’t know how serious Tom would be about that. He’s a great lad and he deserves everything he gets.”
Reddan proceeded to wax lyrical about Hayes’ skill set and described him as a great loss to Irish rugby while pointing out that, as an Irishman exiled abroad, he will travel to Dublin this weekend with little in the way of motivation required.
The Leinster scrum-half knows that feeling all too well, having spent three seasons at Wasps having failed to make his mark in his home province and then facing Declan Kidney’s Munster in the pool stages of the 2007/08 European Cup.
“He’s playing in a position where he can impose himself on the game,” he explained. “He’ll be in the game straight away so obviously that’s good for him because he’s their captain, he’s their leader.
“He’s a good player, a good guy off the pitch, just an all around top player so he’s going to be feeling the confidence during the week and I’m sure he’ll bring his team in the same vein.”
Leinster will surely be braced for the challenge.
The holders have started 12 of their 17 Heineken Cup campaigns on home soil and, of the three they lost, the last two have been against English opposition with Bath and London Irish claiming narrow three-point wins in 2005 and 2010.
“I do think this game of the season is a big game for the English clubs because of the way their season is structured,” said Reddan.
“They hit the ground running at the start of September, they iron out a few creases and they’re flying now.
“Our season starts a bit differently. If ever there’s a danger, this is it. At the end of the weekend if you look at the English results they’ll do well because that’s pretty standard every year. That’s the challenge in that we happen to be playing an English club this weekend.”
Exeter destroyed Harlequins, the English champions, with a five-try salvo last weekend and have promised to come out all guns blazing again this weekend, but Reddan believes there is some subterfuge to their public utterances of late.
“I suppose they’ll have you believe they’re not that good and they’re a bunch of lads coming together to come over and have a bit of craic, which is a bit of a misnomer. Last year they were close to the [Premiership] top four. They had a game against Northampton and whoever won it was going to be in the [play-offs]. It was a very tough game with massive intensity in the kind of setting and the kind of atmosphere that probably you might see next weekend.”
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