Ah, the second row. The Tall Guys. The Long Fellas. The Jumpy Bois. Or, as they’re more commonly known, the literal winning and losing of most games when you boil it all down.

I’ve spoken about this before last year and very little has changed… well, except one thing. When La Rochelle won the European Cup this season they became the first team in the modern era to do so without a half-lock or a three-lock pack. Sure, Grégory Aldritt has strong half-lock-like tendencies in his prime Power Forward roleset but, for the most part, La Rochelle went with the small forward/combo flanker/power forward back row build with the idea that Will Skelton is big enough and strong enough to count as two locks.

I’m joking there – kind of – but it goes to show the value of the rarest of all the second-row role types; the Tighthead Lock Power Forward. Will Skelton is a perfect example of this role type. He’s 6’8″, 125KG and, during the European Cup final, he carried the ball 17 times, committing multiple defenders on almost every single one. He did more than just carry, of course, but I’m pretty confident that “no Skelton, no star” is a far enough label to put on La Rochelle on their run last season, as good as they were.

There aren’t very many players that fill that Tighthead Lock Power Forward role set. In fact, I think there are only two.

Will Skelton and RG Snyman.

The Ballad of RG Snyman has been a pretty morose number for the first two years of his time at Munster. When we signed him after the 2019 World Cup you could make an argument that he was one of the best locks on the planet and exactly what we were looking for to beef up our front five to a trophy-winning level.

But… well, you know the rest. He missed the entirety of 2020/21 and, after three bench appearances and just 46 minutes of rugby at the start of last season, the same surgically repaired ACL got pranged up on a restart in what was, ultimately, a meaningless game.

In just one jarring, awkward motion, his season was done and, with him, went Munster’s chances of progressing past elite-level sides in knockout rugby. That sounds dramatic and a little hot-takey, but I think it’s true. RG Snyman is to Munster as Will Skelton is to La Rochelle and was to Saracens before that – a game-changing physical talent in the core position in the modern game.

Snyman combined with the 6’8″/125KG Jason Jenkins was supposed to be a core part of our back five rotation for last season but it didn’t work out like that. From last year’s Depth Chart article on the Second Row & Half Lock positions;

Snyman and Jenkins have the offensive and defensive physicality to lift Munster to the next level if they can get on the field consistently. I keep saying “if they can stay fit” because, as you know, Snyman missed the entirety of last season and Jenkins is not a stranger to medium-term injuries.

If Munster can get both players on the field at the same time – regardless of whether Jenkins is scrummaging at tighthead lock or on the flank – they have the relationship and built-in cohesion to be a devasting heavy-carrying combination off #9 or running off #10.

Snyman and Jenkins didn’t play a single second of on-field time together all season long. Actually, when we’re talking about Tighthead Lock Power Forwards, Jason Jenkins fits the bill from a physical perspective – hence why Leo Cullen signed him for Leinster – but he had some key issues holding him back from becoming that role player here.

For a start, Jenkins suffered mid-term injury after mid-term injury during his time here, to the point where he only made his debut in the third week of December and only made 10 appearances all season for 277 minutes total – 2 starts and 8 as a replacement. The biggest killer was his injury right after his debut which meant he didn’t feature for Munster week to week until the end of March 2022, by which time the season was mostly done and he was already announced as joining Leinster the following season.

This was a guy signed on hefty money for a one-year stint but couldn’t break in as a core starter with Snyman and Beirne injured for the seasonal run-in but, as with everything, there’s a reason for that. There were concerns over his fitness in general, his attitude to rehab on the whole, his ability to go week to week as the season progressed and some of his defensive and lineout detail.

We can’t separate his move to Leinster from reduced starting appearances as the season progressed. Why build a lot of limited minutes into a guy who will see the benefit of those minutes up the road from July? That’s speculation, however, when the plain facts of it are that the Jason Jenkins we saw for 6 minutes at home to Exeter and 20 minutes against Cardiff wasn’t the Jason Jenkins we saw for most of his contract here. Speaking of which, that Jenkins contract and the re-signing of it, was really interesting.

Last year, I wrote the following about Snyman and Jenkins;

Both men are off contract at the end of next season. Munster will wait to see if Snyman can stay healthy but, if he can, I wouldn’t be shocked to see us look to extend both players by an extra year. Again, I think that Beirne’s contract status will play a role here in Munster’s ability to retain these two but, if they are a success on-field, it’ll be something I think we’ll go after.

Instead of one year each, it seems we went all-in on one.

When it became clear mid-way through 2021/22 that David Nucifora was open to Munster keeping one of our NIQ locks, Munster had a decision to make, essentially, between RG Snyman or Jason Jenkins – both of whom were injured at the time. RG Snyman had been keen to stay at Munster for some time given how well his partner had settled into Limerick from a personal and work perspective. He also had a feeling of wanting to pay Munster back after missing the entirety of his €1m+, two-year deal through injury. It’s not his fault he was injured, obviously, but you can understand that feeling of wanting to “make amends” but finding the money to keep him was one thing and finding dispensation to keep him from the IRFU was another.

Initially, there was some reluctance from the 1014 group who had bankrolled Snyman’s signing in the first place, to re-invest for another term, if dispensation could be gotten which was far from certain. The 1014 – a collection of incredibly wealthy private investors who have and continue to invest in certain player contracts at Munster – are not an endless pit of money and, to be frank, when they splurge €1m+ on a signing they want to see that signing on the field winning big games for Munster.

Snyman, by late October 2021, had spent the majority of his time in the rehab room.

So, right away, that’s a tough sell to the 1014 who, according to my information, rebuffed the first request to bankroll Snyman for another contract. It was understandable. Even though Munster could, in theory, afford Snyman from the provincial budget it would require deep cuts elsewhere to compensate which was a non-runner. This initial rebuff was, by all accounts, one of the many flies in the ointment when it came to Johann Van Graan’s relationship with the 1014 group.

It was considered a non-runner anyway at the time because Nucifora wasn’t inclined to give Munster permission to retain Snyman but when that changed things moved quite quickly, especially from early December 2021 on. Did Johann Van Graan’s announced departure in the middle of December in combination with the softening of Nucifora’s stance mean the 1014 were more amenable to paying up a reduced amount for Snyman?

I think it’s a fair enough question when we look at the timing.

With dispensation in hand – and Leinster also looking for reinforcements in the position – Munster had to pick. Snyman or Jenkins?

Jenkins was considered a one-year gap signing who would look excellent alongside Snyman but there is no choice between the two if we’re looking at top-level ability and leadership within the group. There was not a very long discussion on who would be kept if only one could be kept. It would be RG Snyman, all day every day. Sure, his ACL issues are a persistent worry but if you can get him for 15+ appearances for around 1000 minutes in a season, he’ll make whatever you pay him more than worth it.

There are persistent rumours that Leinster attempted to sign RG Snyman once they got dispensation from the IRFU in that position but the same rumours say that Snyman turned them down flat. Jenkins, on the other hand, needed a landing spot and wasn’t shy of offers from France, South Africa and Japan. Leinster had money to spend and did so on a guy that, if he can stay fit, can give them the size and heft they’ve needed in the position for a few years, especially given the way the game has scaled in the last three years.

For Munster, there were other considerations that would have affected any re-signing of Jenkins. Namely, Thomas Ahern. Any deal you’d sign Jenkins to would take minutes and opportunities away from Ahern by default. That was sellable last season when Ahern was still adding size and durability to his frame, but it’s absolutely not sellable this year.

Ahern’s stature and physical gifts are obvious. He’s an athletic 6’9″/117KG with the kind of pace, length and explosivity that marks him out as elite but he needed to get to a stage where he was backing up training sessions, let alone backing up games week to week, month to month, block to block.

This is entirely natural for tall, long athletes like Ahern to take time – four years in Ahern’s case from the academy to the second year of his first senior deal – to build the type of durability you need to be a modern lock forward. Ahern certainty seemed to have that by the end of 2021/22 when he made really meaningful contributions from April on after he recovered from a hamstring injury he suffered against Zebre. I feel that without the time lost to the Omicron incident in November 2021 and the recovery time, lost momentum associated with that, Ahern gets 5/6 more games under his belt for what would probably be a breakout season for him.

Instead, this season looks to be the year. If he can stay fit.

Ahern is out of contract at the end of this season but in my opinion, from a club perspective at least, he’s one of the first guys you call into the office to talk about a higher-tier contract extension.

Ideally, you’d get a guy like Ahern on a three-year deal. He’s 22, he’s 6’9″, and he’s already shown that he can at least impact at European knockout level. What might he do this season with the bulk and experience he earned last season? That’s a tantalizing prospect. The tantalizing prospect in the Munster back five, you could argue.

Yes, he’s got to stay available and perform, of course, but there’s no reason why he shouldn’t start the season with the same effectiveness and impact that he finished last season with, for the most part. As contract extensions go, this would appear to be a no-brainer, especially when you consider Ahern’s potential national importance.

You can start Ahern with Snyman and bring Kleyn off the bench, or you can start Snyman and Kleyn and launch Ahern on 55 minutes. That’s the height, heft, lineout threat and explosivity we’ve been trying to build for years now.

Priority 1: Important player to be replaced by the end of the season. 
Priority 2: Important player to be replaced within two seasons
Priority 3: Important player to be replaced within three seasons
Core 1: Important first-choice player that likely has at least four seasons of peak performance remaining.
Squad 2: Squad player in peak age that likely has four+ seasons of high performance in a down-the-chart position.
Foundation Player: Young talent (20-24) expected to play for five + seasons and transition to Core 1.
Potential Foundation: Talent ID’d young player (18-23) that has the potential to ascend to regular first-team exposure as a Core 1 or Squad 2 type player.
Assess 1: A player that will need to be assessed for role suitability and depth chart position across the upcoming season with a view to their future usage or contract.

	Player Position	Age Jan 1 2023	Grade	Contract Year?
RG Snyman	LOCK	27	CORE 1/PRIORITY 2	NO
Jean Kleyn	LOCK	29	CORE 1	NO
Thomas Ahern	LOCK	22	FOUNDATION	YES
Paddy Kelly	LOCK	22	ASSESS 1	YES
Edwin Edogbo (A)	LOCK	20	POTENTIAL FOUNDATION	YES
Evin O'Connell (A)	LOCK	18	POTENTIAL FOUNDATION	YES
Tadhg Beirne	LOCK/HALF-LOCK	30	CORE 1	NO
Fineen Wycherley	LOCK/HALF-LOCK	25	ASSESS 1	YES
Eoin O'Connor	LOCK/HALF-LOCK	22	ASSESS 1	YES
Cian Hurley (A)	LOCK/HALF-LOCK	22	ASSESS 1	YES

But where does that leave Tadhg Beirne, who is arguably the best back-five forward in the world at the moment? Last season, I speculated about Beirne’s possible ascension to central contract status and, if he didn’t, how that might make things difficult for Munster, both from an affordability and a straight-up “can we convince you to stay” perspective.

You might think that getting Beirne onto a central contract would be a no-brainer but it was far from straightforward. Beirne’s contract was bounced between Munster and the IRFU, back again and back again during the course of the period before his new three-year central contract was announced in February 2022.

It was wildly deserved, as Beirne would show throughout the Six Nations and then on the Summer Tour to New Zealand where he produced two of the best performances you’ll ever see anywhere, from anyone. Tadhg Beirne is genuinely one of the best players in the world and only the very wrong would disagree with that.

For Munster, Beirne missed the run-in last season and he’s one of those guys where, if he starts against Toulouse, we probably win that game but that’s neither here nor there now. That’s just how good he is and how badly we missed him. For the next three years, he’s an IRFU player that will play for Munster and, as a result, we should expect to see him between 10 and 12 times per season, less during a World Cup year, and mainly during European pool games, the odd targeted URC game and knockout rugby.

That’s the gift and the curse of central contracts. We’ll get him for free but our usage of him will be limited. This season, ahead of the World Cup, it will be particularly limited by all accounts. I’m wondering about how that central contract might determine where his usage is, too.

Over the last two seasons, I’ve heard consistent whispers about Andy Farrell wanting to see more of Tadhg Beirne as a half-lock – at #6 – but that’s been consistently scuppered by injuries elsewhere. When RG Snyman and Jason Jenkins were consistently injured for most of last season, there wasn’t much freedom to use Beirne outside the second row, especially in Europe. Even then, in his three URC appearances for Munster, Beirne started at #6 twice. In 2019/20, we used Beirne as a half-lock twice against Saracens to good effect – before he got injured – and it makes sense from a role perspective. Beirne’s skillset does not tie him to the second row. Think of everything he’s elite at. None of those qualities scream that he’s a lock and a lock only, in the way that Eben Etzebeth’s skills do of him.

From an Irish perspective, it makes sense too. Iain Henderson, James Ryan and Tadhg Beirne are all on longer-term central contract deals. All three are, nominally, locks but does Andy Farrell want to stack Ireland’s #4/#5 and #19 jersey with three centrally contracted players? I don’t think so. There are three centrally contracted midfielders (Ringrose, Henshaw and Aki) but that’s usually two 80-minute jerseys. The second row is a three-man position in most matchday selections but if all three of those players are centrally contracted it cuts off one of those jerseys as a development tool for guys like Joe McCarthy or Thomas Ahern.

But if Beirne is used as a #6, that would allow you to retain Henderson and Ryan, leave a development spot open on the bench and begin the process of replacing O’Mahony post-Rugby World Cup while doubling down on Doris as the incumbent #8 going forward. Do you lose anything at the lineout? No. Do you lose anything at the offensive and defensive breakdown? No. Do you lose anything from a ball-carrying perspective? The opposite, in fact. Do you get three big characters and big players on the field at the same time? Yes.

At Munster, it’s the same principle.

Beirne used as a half-lock opens up consistent usage of Snyman, Kleyn and Ahern as primary options and allows Munster to play a bigger back five than we have done previously.

If you look at the pack build that Mike Prendergast worked with at Racing 92 for the last few years it used a half-lock consistently – Baptiste Chouzenoux and Fabien Sanconnie last season – so using Beirne in that role could be a solution to a problem Munster and Ireland don’t even know we have yet.

Whatever happens, Beirne will be a feature of Munster’s bigger games this season if he’s fit so it comes down to how we choose to use his elite, unique skill set.

***

Jean Kleyn’s value for Munster is undeniable. In his six years here, Kleyn has played 20+ games every season bar two. Last season, he racked up 20 starts in 21 games for 1228 minutes across the season. He was Munster’s most consistent front five ball carrier, he had a 95% tackle completion rate, improved core areas of his game like his passing and doubled down on his core strengths like scrummaging and heavy maul work.

Kleyn is an easy CORE 1 talent for Munster and has arguably been our most valuable player in the last few years from a pack composition perspective. With Kleyn in the second row, Munster were able to stack a number of different combinations through the back five but, as ever, I felt that when it came to the big games – certainly at the end of the season – that he was the only “true” lock on the field in red for most of the game from a size and power perspective.

He was most often partnered with the ultra-reliable Fineen Wycherley, who faces a pivotal season at Munster Rugby. Every team needs a second row with Fineen Wycherley’s skill set. A rarely injured, three-star guy at minimum every week, who can scrummage on both sides, call the lineout, jump effectively anywhere in the lineout while being a reliable tackler (94.5% completion rate on 219 tackles last season), and a decent carrier of the ball? There’ll always be a need for a guy like that.

The problem is size.

I’ve been over this before, of course, and quibbling over two inches is ridiculous – of course – but if Fineen Wycherley was 6’6″ and 120KG with his established skills, he’d be firmly in the Irish test bubble as a semi-regular option. But he isn’t. Fineen is listed at 6’4″ and 112KG at the moment but, as usual, those stats are hard to parse fully.

Togged out, I think he’s close enough to 6’5″ to make it not worth talking about. Thing is, at 6’5″-ish and 115kg-ish, he’ll still run the risk of being perceived as undersized in the world of the modern lock forward. Yes, he’s ultra-reliable and well-rounded but, for me, unless he can add an outsized defensive game (+15 tackles a game with a very low miss percentage) or really develop as a primary ball-carrying forward, he runs the risk of being cast in that Ross Molony/Billy Holland/Alan O’Connor role of mid-tier, squad level lock who’s always a good academy crop away from getting cycled out of his contract tier and ending up in Connacht or abroad.

In the new contracting reality, there is room for top guys, young talent that might end up being a top guy and anyone who fills that middle of the 2010s role of solid squad guy is in danger every other contract cycle. That’s why it’s a big year for Fineen Wycherley who, like his brother, had a lot of interest from Harlequins around the time of his previous renewal. Wycherley doesn’t necessarily have to watch out for Thomas Ahern when it comes to a contract this season. At 25, he has to be watching Eoin O’Connor, Paddy Kelly and even the trajectory of guys like Edwin Edogbo and Evan O’Connell.

If he can bump his offensive or defensive output, I think he’s an easy renewal from a club POV. If Munster start to use a half-lock system consistently, Wycherley could take that rounded skill set to the back row and immediately dump the energy spent on scrummaging into that aforementioned offensive or defensive skill trees but I feel that would have to be a reversal of his current trend of 80% of his starts coming in the second row, as opposed to the back row.

The start to Munster’s season will see us without Beirne and Snyman for the first few rounds so Wycherley is the obvious choice to be a lineout leader in the second row and, if he can start strong in a winning side, he’ll make contract discussions the kind of formality that they should be. He’s not on the chopping block, I would say, but he needs a definitive season to really nail down his spot going forward – not just for this contract, but the next one too.

Eoin O’Connor & Paddy Kelly went onto one-year senior deals after completing their time in the academy last season. Given they are both second rows, it would be easy to say that they are competing for one contract this year but I’m not sure that’s a given.

They are both quite different players who can fill very different roles.

O’Connor made his European Cup debut last year against Wasps and then picked up some good bench minutes on the rescheduled tour to South Africa in March, coming off the bench against the Emirates Lions and the Vodacom Bulls.

Eoin O’Connor was brought into the academy one year after Thomas Ahern in 2019/20. O’Connor and Ahern had been a hugely impressive second-row partnership for Waterpark underage with a great combination of size, length and power. Eoin O’Connor was considered every bit as impressive as Ahern at that time according to people around Waterford rugby at the time. To give you an idea of how good and hardy Eoin O’Connor was, he played Munster Junior League rugby for Waterpark as a sixth year in secondary school and looked a cert to pick up some Irish U20 caps once he went to the academy before an annoyingly complex knee injury ruled him out for that entire season in early 2020.

He came back to training ahead of 2021/22 and I saw him playing a good few times for Young Munster in the AIL at that time and, notably, he was often played in the back row. Part of that was practicality – he would only be able to train with Young Munster once in the week so wouldn’t be totally down with the lineout detail but his height and length would be really well suited as a secondary jumper plus it’s a little less physically demanding on a young academy guy.

O’Connor reminded me a lot of Courtney Lawes whenever I saw him. Same big wingspan, same lineout usage, the same relative level of physical impact. Then he showed up really well against Wasps.

Massive power from Eoin O'Connor here. Wasps camped on the tryline with a latcher, Murray and O'Mahony under pressure with their body position, O'Connor drives the entire lot back 3 metres. #SUAF pic.twitter.com/lZEP5QfKbu

— Three Red Kings (@threeredkings) December 13, 2021

There’s a really good player here with a wide variety of usages if he can stay fit. At 6’7″ and 110KG with a big frame that could easily take more size and a long-noted ball-carrying ability, there’s a possible power forward here, especially if he’s used as a half-lock in the back row.

If they want to keep him in the second row, I think he’ll need to get close to 117KG to get his best usage but it’s hard to gauge how much he can put on his frame. Could he go to 120KG? That’s not a discussion for this season, where he mainly has to stay fit, hit a few key markers early in the season in the URC and get himself on an active depth chart. Train well, prep well, play well, rinse and repeat.

With Beirne and O’Mahony’s appearances likely quite limited, there’s a real opportunity for a player like O’Connor (a lock/half-lock) to make a big run at some early minutes in either the #4 jersey or #6 jersey and nail down what kind of player he actually is.

If he can do that early, I think there’s a two-year deal there for O’Connor. Remember, the post-Snyman era is coming at the end of 2024 at the latest and Beirne’s Munster minutes will be limited as a central contract player so Munster needs a variety of lock rolesets to emerge in the next two seasons.

With that in mind, Paddy Kelly is a player who I’ve got a fair bit of interest in this upcoming season. He’s one of those guys that was taken straight into the academy after the Leaving Cert in 2019 – something that always means something, even if the final outcome isn’t always set in stone – so I’ve been waiting to see what kind of impact Kelly would make in the setup.

He’s essentially spent three seasons getting his S&C and rugby frame in order. He would have made his debut this past season, I feel, but a hamstring injury ended his season in November 2021, right when there was more game time going around than anyone knew what to do with.

From a role-set perspective, Kelly looks like he’s got the size and heft to be a tighthead lock/heavy support forward type player but he’s (a) got to stay fit and (b) show he’s got the power, dog and toughness to be a viable Jean Kleyn role-twin. He’s got to show it pretty early too, given the nature of his contract and the difficulty of his roleset.

I don’t think Kelly is directly competing with O’Connor for one contract but he almost certainly is competing with guys like Edogbo and O’Connell in the academy.

At 6’6″≈ and 110KG≈ in the second year of the academy, Edwin Edogbo just needs rugby this season after a nasty Achilles injury limited him to zero rugby after joining the academy in October. Once he gets through pre-season, Edogbo will have to show off potential role-set suitability but mainly get rugby into him, be it A games, AIL or ideally both. That said, I can’t quite shake the feeling that Edogbo, in a reduced role, could make some good URC minutes this season. He’s very raw but the capacity is there to scale up to URC level rugby with the right build around him.

Cian Hurley is another guy in the third year of the academy and looks like he’s nailed down as a half-lock build back row. I saw him in Cork and Limerick this summer and he’s looking in great nick. He’s one of the less heralded West Cork Mafia members but he’s ready for road now, straight away, and he’s capable of doing 500 minutes+ easy this season in my opinion.

You’ve got to avoid rushing academy guys like Hurley because they often need all three years to get the kind of physical durability they need to be able to show what they’re about in this game. I think Hurley is at that point now where he’s capable of showcasing what he’s about.

He’s a good lineout guy, he’s a solid defender and he looks like a guy capable of winning collisions with the ball in hand and at the breakdown but he’s got to show it with real urgency this year. If he does, I think there are a lot of minutes for him, especially in a big back-five build. A good season for him would be 7/8 URC appearances, some strong AIL performances if needed and a one-year contract offer at least ahead of the World Cup. Mainly I want him to show what type of half-lock he is – offensive, defensive focus, or all-rounder. If he can specialize offensively, on top of showing strong lineout chops, there might even be a two-year waiting for him with a good run and a bit of luck elsewhere.

Finally, let’s talk about Evan O’Connell. Do you know how good you have to be brought into a professional academy set up a few months after you turn 18? Do you know how good you have to be to get on an NTS panel at that age? Do you know how good you have to be to do all of these things while you also happen to be Paul O’Connell’s nephew?

People think it’s easier being the relative of a guy of Paul O’Connell’s stature in the game but it’s actually 100 times harder. Sure, you’ve got your uncle giving you a leg up when it comes to prep, elite-level positional detail and everything else but know this as being true too – half the people you meet want you to fail. They are gasping to sit over a pint at the club bar and sigh to their buddies that, unfortunately, “he isn’t a patch on his uncle.” He will have to deal with this in the early going of his career and, possibly, throughout.

If you’re thinking that Munster did Paul O’Connell “a favour” by bringing in his nephew to the academy at this young age, you’re misguided. If they wanted to do Paul O’Connell a favour, they’d have left Evan O’Connell off for a year playing AIL to get his feet under him, get settled in college and then bring him in when he’s just turned 19 next summer. That would still be pretty young, relatively speaking.

Instead, Ian Costello and Graham Rowntree are telling us that Evan O’Connell is of such high potential that he needs to be put onto a professional S&C program now, today, immediately, so that he can become who he might be in the next two or three years by training every week with the likes of RG Snyman and Tadhg Beirne.

For a bit of context here, Irish provincial setups don’t bring in guys who have just turned 18 very often. It is incredibly rare. You see “old” 18-year-olds, who turn 19 inside the first few months of their term, sure, but you rarely – and I mean rarely – see a player who was 17 at the start of May get added to the academy in June as an 18-year-old.

But that’s what happened with O’Connell.

I’ve actually seen this guy playing for Castletroy College last year a few times and I’ll say now what I said then – he looks incredibly complete. At underage level, I think everybody has seen “the coach’s son” who knows the game inside out but just doesn’t have the athletic potential to ever make it. They get the game but they just don’t have the machinery to ever play the game at the highest level. Evan O’Connell not only gets the game at a high level but he also has all the physical traits you would want in a high-potential young lock forward. He’s dynamic on-ball, he’s explosive, he’s an excellent lineout jumper with a huge wingspan, he’s huge, and he’s got those leadership chops that you either have or you don’t. When I saw him, Paul O’Connell was helping to coach Castletroy on the sideline and some of the snippets you’d hear were exactly what you want with a mentor like O’Connell.

“You’ve got to question that, Evan,” said Paul, after a dodgy decision went against Castletroy. That’s the kind of stuff you don’t really hear all that often. Evan questioned the ref. Got clarity. Imposed himself physically. The next penalty went to Castletroy. Castletroy lost that day to Bandon Grammar – a late winner – but O’Connell was singularly impressive.

He was just as impressive for Ireland u19s a few months later and it was not a shock to see him included in the academy intake. It was simply a matter of time.

For this season, he just needs to install all the rugby and S&C he can, play some A rugby, maybe hit some AIL, stay fit for the Irish u20 campaign, hit the ground running there and, basically, add as much bulk to his frame that he can. He already gets the game, he just needs to add to his 6’6″+ frame consistently. There’s no rush.

If it works out, Evan O’Connell has the potential to be a great player, maybe even a tighthead lock power forward if he works out like he has the potential to.

One to watch out for as the years’ progress.