How Leinster are developing new foundations

It’s been 21 years but the names of Pat Whelan and Seamus Harty aren’t far from Trevor Hogan’s lips when the conversation strays back to the 16-year old kid who wandered into the Nenagh Ormond club at the onset of his rugby journey.

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Hogan chiselled out a good, nine-year professional career for himself with Munster and Leinster.

He played over a hundred times for the two provinces combined and he got to represent Ireland on four occasions at senior level to boot.

Not bad for a kid brought up to worship at the altar of soccer by his older brothers.

A guy whose path to the ultimate honour came via the East Munster trial that his two old coaches wangled for him, runs with Munster and Ireland Youths, an approach from Tony Smeeth to play with Trinity when ignored by the Irish U20s before spells with Blackrock and Shannon.

So Hogan knows what it is to graft for your break. To make light of an unheralded background and come in from the cold to earn a seat in the most prestigious of dressing-rooms. No wonder, then, that he’s now Leinster Talent ID officer.

The ability of the province to churn out high-class potential from its academy is envied in the three other provinces and in countries across the world but the vast majority of it is still sourced from the traditional schools route.

“The schools are working at, or close to, their maximum as it is and all credit to the people involved for that,” says the 37-year old.

“There are new schools coming on stream as well. Temple Carrig in Greystones would be an example of that. But the gap between the schools and the club game is slowly closing. The area with the most potential for growth is the club side of things. It’s a huge, mostly untapped resource.

Ten years ago, Hogan was one of just four players on the Leinster squad to have come through the game’s underage club system while 26 were schools graduates and another 13 had spent their formative years in another jurisdiction.

If Leo Cullen scanned through his senior roster ahead of today’s Champions Cup semi-final against Clermont Auvergne he would have run his eyes over six club players, 27 schools alumni and eight who moved to Ireland after their teenage years.

Not much change there.

The presence of players like Sean O’Brien, Tadhg Furlong, Adam Byrne, and Peter Dooley in the squad this season — all of them from backgrounds of a different sporting hue — is proof of the fact that there is more than one path that leads to the mountain top and others are making names for themselves via less familiar routes.

Tom Daly is another in the senior setup who has made it onto the senior panel from leftfield, his starting points being the GAA strongholds of Knockbeg College and Carlow.

The likes of Joey Carbery and James Tracy have detoured through the AIL before working their way mainstream.

But the old school ties remain resolutely strong. Twenty-three of the 24 youngsters listed in this year’s academy class come from the schools game. Just one, Mullingar RFC’s Conor O’Brien, is a pure product of the club pathway.

O’Brien could be a shining light for the type of player of which Leinster want to see more. His father Garrett won an U21 All-Ireland football title with Offaly in 1988 and the son played hurling and football underage for Westmeath before opting for rugby.

Some of his peers started out from equally unfamiliar hinterlands. Jeremy Loughman went to school in Ardscoil na Trionoide in Kildare before switching to Blackrock.

Oisin Heffernan swapped Connemara for Roscrea and Josh Murphy moved on from formative years with Enniscorthy RFC to St Michael’s.

The school fishing grounds are producing varying catches too. In 2007, St Mary’s were the largest bulk suppliers of talent to the Leinster senior squad and St Michael’s wasn’t mapped.

Now Michael’s have more alumni on the panel than anyone and it’s the same story in the academy ranks.

It’s the job of Hogan and the growing number of regional and community officers dotted around the 12 counties to try and manufacture similarly sweeping changes so that the intake from the province’s clubs can begin to catch up on the schools.

Luckily, they’re not starting from scratch.

The Shane Horgan Cup is an U16 tournament for club players and based on five geographic regions.

A sevens competition for players more familiar with soccer and GAA is a relatively recent innovation and Hogan is effusive about the talent it has unearthed and in the potential for using the event to introduce these rookies to the 15-man format.

Leinster are involved early on in minis and community rugby but players are 16 before they come under any serious instruction from branch personnel. It is at U19 level before schools and clubs pathways are merged into one.

The groundwork for next season’s 19s squad is already done. A fourth and final trial at Donnybrook two days ago had 52 players - roughly half from each strand - put through their paces though it isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach that the coaches take.

“In the past, that step-up for club players has been huge so what we have done is make sure that the Youths teams get to play the Schools throughout the year,” says Hogan.

“So they would have games against Blackrock or Michael’s. Expose them to those teams and players so that it isn’t a massive shock to them when they merge at 19s.

"There’s also been an understanding that it is harsh and judgemental to come to a decision on some of those guys at just one trial or session.

"We always say that they may need the benefit of a bit more patience and time because every coach is aware of the challenges. The growth that you see from those guys in a short space of time can be huge.”

Andy Wood, better known for his work with Clontarf, is one of the U19s’ coaches. Simon Broughton, a Kiwi who has played club rugby for Ballymena and De La Salle and, briefly, for Leinster under Matt Williams, is another.

Broughton, who is a year into a role as an elite player development officer with the province, has been delighted with the variety of attributes he has seen from the players emanating from the Clubs/Youths conveyor line.

“For the club players maybe sometimes they feel that they have something to prove because their competitions are not on TV or don’t get the same media exposure but you look at the Leinster team at the moment and see the Tadhg Furlongs and Adam Byrnes of this world.

“These guys have followed that same path and they are now competing with the best that is out there on a weekly basis,” he told the Leinster website. “There is no greater inspiration than those fellas right there.”