Brian Deeny: From Wexford wannabe to Leinster lock

U20 colleagues Jack Crowley, Cian Prendergast and Joe McCarthy have already played for Ireland but Deeny’s immediate priority will be to add to his seven club appearances while the internationals are away on Six Nations business.

Thu, 26 Jan, 2023 - 06:15

Brendan O'Brien

Few of us get to meet our childhood heroes. Less again are lucky enough to avail of a front-row seat as our sporting gods put on a show. Brian Deeny was afforded that very opportunity as a budding Gaelic footballer.

The Leinster lock was still in primary school when his native Wexford were competing in Leinster finals and All-Ireland semi-finals in the big ball code and Matty Forde was the superstar forward shooting the lights out on any given Sunday.

By 2017 Forde was a selector for the county minors and Deeny a key midfielder and the talent that earned the older man his county’s one and only football All Star was demonstrated at one training session during their championship run.

“We had a contest kicking three frees on the ‘21’ from the left, centre and right-hand side. I missed every single one and he stuck every one of them. He was the coach and he was the best there. Outside of the boot, curling them over the bar.” Deeny is self-deprecating about his own talents on a GAA pitch but he was clearly a player, one who was central to the All-Ireland Leinster Schools Football title won by St Peter’s College earlier that same year.

Alongside him in that midfield was Rory O’Connor, who has gone on to excel with the Wexford senior hurlers and Barry O’Connor, son of 1996 All-Ireland winner George who spent three seasons on the AFL books with Sydney Swans.

Others on that colleges team included Conor Firman and Conor Hearne, both of whom have represented the county hurlers at senior level. Everything about Deeny’s environment pointed towards the same jersey but with the footballers.

Not so. By February of 2019 he was coming off the bench for Ireland against England in the U20s Six Nations and his progression peaked again earlier this month with a first Champions Cup appearance for Leinster, against Gloucester.

Ultimately, it was an off-the-cuff decision to pop into Wexford Wanderers with a friend when he was 14 years old that proved to be the pivotal fork in the road for his sporting path but he has had to overcome a scattering of obstacles to make it this far.

Covid and a plague of injuries cost him the best part of three years at what was a crucial time in his development, and all the more so given he was travelling on the Club path rather than the more streamlined and intense School route.

Sacrifices have had to be made.

He left school a year early to make the switch up to Dublin and learn his trade with Clontarf in the AIL and he is all too mindful of the time and effort put in through the years by his mum Georgina who owns a B&B and dad Bernard who has his own business.

“The B&B is 24/7 so they don’t get much time off with that and my dad after coming home after a long day on the road would drive me to Naas on Monday or Carlow on a Wednesday as I was coming through the system.” His journey from beyond the Pale to Leinster’s senior squad is not unique but it isn’t nearly common enough to be ignored and, while he will argue that the Club pathway is better now than before, it still leaves its graduates playing catch-up.

And he makes no bones about the fact that if it wasn’t for the Leinster coaches and people like fellow lock Charlie Ryan – who had to retire this week aged 23 due to injury – then he might never have kept his head above water in the earlier days.

“I always say that if it wasn’t for him I don’t know what would have happened.”