Ryan Baird on life, golf and journey to becoming world-class
BAIRD-IE: Ryan Baird took to Golf to ease his World Cup torment. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Caelan Doris found himself wondering how he would ever play again.
Andrew Porter fumed over the scrum penalties given against him in that quarter-final loss to New Zealand. Jimmy O’Brien couldn’t let it all go until the final was over a fortnight later.
This is generally how it was for Andy Farrell’s players when they returned from World Cup duties.
Ryan Baird? He felt some of that too. He gave a talk only last week when the World Cup was mentioned and it prompted a queasiness in his stomach.
But he seems to have digested it more thoroughly than most.
They came home two days after that All Blacks defeat and the torment began to ease when he made north at the back end of the week, picked up a campervan in Antrim and picked off some of the best golf courses known to man.
He had his golden retriever, Mackenzie, and a friend for company. They did some fishing, took in Royal Portrush and Portstewart and experienced a landscape fashioned by the gods as they went around the St Patrick’s links at Rosapenna in Donegal.
“I played Portrush off the front tees because they were protecting the backs so I probably didn’t get the same challenge. I played St Pat’s right off the tips. It’s an incredible course, it used to be 36 holes designed by Jack Nicklaus.
“Then Tom Doak redesigned it and made it 18-hole. It’s incredible scenery. One of the holes you’re looking out on this bay and there’s a mountain range off to the left and a harbour to the right. You can’t beat it.”
The upswing in his mood was mirrored by the weather as well as the landscape. Almost the entire island was being buffeted by rain at that point in October. The only slice that seemed to be spared was this northern coastline where Baird had retired for some peace of mind.
“I was thinking before the World Cup what would success be? And, you know, let's say, we won that match, we kept going. Yes, that'd be pretty successful but how we developed as players and as people over that, you know, two/three month period...
“I developed so much as a player and as a person, I learned so much through heartaches of not being selected and through highs of winning matches against South Africa in Stade de France,” he explained.
“Initially just after, you can't deal with it without success, but looking back after reflection, you can say 'wow, I learned so much from that experience' and I did. And I'm incredibly grateful for that opportunity.”
His golf handicap certainly benefited given he is down to seven having been off ten at the start of the summer but the priority in the here and now is becoming the rugby player he has threatened to be since making his Leinster debut as a teenager five years ago.
Baird’s World Cup amounted to less than half-an-hour against Tonga and 17 minutes against the Springboks. He still has just 15 Test caps, which feels below par for a man of his physical and athletic qualities, and someone who can do a job in the second row or at blindside.
He knows this.
Baird talks about delivering the fundamentals. He looks at James Ryan’s abilities at the breakdown, Doris’ effectiveness with and without the ball, and Joe McCarthy splitting seams at lineouts and disrupting tackles, as a magpie would an unguarded nest.
“I'm looking at those lads in similar positions and that's what I'm trying to implement. My point of difference is probably more on the athletic side, but these guys are all athletic, but more the speed elements out in the channels, running good lines and punching carries.
“But what I want to find myself being able to do as well is to do that type of work as effectively as those guys because I think they're world-class at it and I'm not at the moment. I'm striving towards that.”
He feels Jacques Nienaber can help. The South African’s energy and manner have already impressed, so too his attention to detail, and Baird loved the way Pieter Steph Du Toit, another hybrid of lock and back row, operated in the Nienaber defensive grid in France.
“Who doesn't want to work with the World Cup winning coach, two-time world cup winning coach? For me, I love his defensive system. It's leaning towards my athletic ability to be able to accelerate off the line, but do it repeatedly.”
It's an approach that he feels can only suit Leinster’s “incredible athletes” as they go about ending a dispiriting run of knockout defeats in the URC and, especially, the Champions Cup where they have lost three times on the bounce now to La Rochelle.
Baird is cognisant of that backdrop as they make for the Stade Marcel Deflandre this Sunday. To ignore it would be foolish. The trick is understanding how to use that as fuel without allowing it to burn through too much emotional energy.
This is first and foremost, he stressed, simply round one of the 2023/24 Champions Cup.
“Of course it's going to be in the back of our minds that we haven't beaten them, but, you know, you want to find the balance of getting yourself in that right state of perfect skill execution and then also having the mindset to physically dominate teams.”
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