Hugo Keenan reenergised by Olympic chapter as New Zealand loom large again for Ireland

REENERGISED: Hugo Keenan gets to work in the gym.Pic: ©INPHO/Billy Stickland

Three months and change now.

Hugo Keenan has moved on but it's worth retreating back to high summer and the Stade de France that day in late July when Irish dreams of an Olympic medal were shattered.

Ireland had started the tournament in style in accounting for the Blitzboks but the first chink in the armour appeared in the last pool game when letting slip a 12-0 lead against New Zealand. It precipitated a quarter-final against Fiji’s reigning champions, which was lost.

A subsequent second defeat to the Kiwis in a minor placing game put the tin hat on it for Keenan and his temporary teammates and, while the Leinster player was brilliant in parts, there were a couple of small but significant mistakes made that fed into the shortfall.

The margins were tiny.

Sevens coach James Topping reflected afterwards that it had been “a touch unfair” to co-opt Keenan, who missed the back end of the XVs season with Leinster to switch codes, into the squad at such short notice.

The transition back to the day job has, understandably, been easier. Keenan has been five years at the longer form of the game now, and with great success, since ending his first term with the sevens team. It feels “natural” to him to be back.

If things didn’t work out as he and his teammates had hoped in France then it still made for one memorable experience with the Stade packed to capacity every session for an event that got underway two days before even the opening ceremony.

Memories are one thing, Keenan is hoping to use the experience going forward.

“It’s probably too early to say but I have come back feeling pretty good, reenergised, definitely really motivated for the season ahead. I’d like to think I have picked up things in attack and defence from the sevens game, and a lot of the Irish sevens players.

“Hopefully you might have seen a little bit of it over the last four weeks [with Leinster] and hopefully you see more of it over the year to come as well. It did a huge, huge amount for me in my development in my younger years in the academy.

“I definitely put a lot of my progress down to the sevens game.

“It was one of the reasons why I wanted to go back to challenge myself again and put myself in unfamiliar circumstances, out of my comfort zone, and to improve my game through that and by playing at that high level in that environment.”

It doesn’t get much more elevated than the month to come with Andy Farrell’s squad facing into four weeks of games against southern hemisphere opposition, starting with another New Zealand side that has delivered its own heartbreak in the last year.

And in the same surrounds.

Ireland’s full-back has a winning record against the Kiwis (played five, won three) but the pain of last October’s loss to the All Blacks will probably never dull entirely for those players who came up just short in Saint-Denis.

For all Ireland’s successes against them since Chicago in 2016, the fact remains that New Zealand has won two successive World Cup quarter-finals that matter far more than Ireland’s 2-1 series success down there in 2022 or any November jostles.

Talk of revenge will filter the air in Dublin before they meet next Friday, if not in camp.

“I don’t think we are viewing it as that,” said Keenan. “We are still hurting a bit from the World Cup, it was a hugely disappointing loss, but we have to view it as a fresh series back at home, the excitement around playing four brilliant sides.

Hugo Keenan does an excercise during a training session with Ireland. Pic: ©INPHO/Billy Stickland

“A lot of things have changed since then through playing squads and coaching staff as well.

It's not a new cycle but, no, I don’t think we’ll be looking at it as a revenge game. It’s a game against one of the top nations and historically probably the best team in the world.”

For Keenan and others who played just over 12 months ago there is at least the opportunity to salve some of those wounds on the pitch. Johnny Sexton won’t ever have that shot having retired that very night but the former captain will have some part to play nonetheless.

Confirmation that he has been involved in a supporting capacity to players and coaches in recent days, and will be again through November, has to be an early win given his vast reservoir of knowledge and experience.

Keenan even spoke of the added “craic” that Sexton, a notoriously demanding character, can bring to the squad. As recent events at the World Cup and Olympics have shown, these minor inputs could well be the difference between winning and losing.

“It’s brilliant getting him back in, he’s got an incredible rugby brain. His knowledge of the game is second to none. He was like a coach when he was playing and I've learned so much off him over the last number of years and give him a lot of credit for progressing my game.

“I suppose all the lads have been tapping him on the shoulder for bits of advice. I'm sure he’ll start popping up in meetings more and more as he finds his feet. It’s exciting to have him back in, he’s a popular figure.”