I have to be very careful here.
Gene O’Leary Kareem, the outside centre and Munster Senior Cup-winning captain for PBC this season just gone, is the best player I’ve ever seen at school level since I’ve been doing Three Red Kings. That is both meaningful and meaningless. I can count the school stars who made it big on one hand, and the school stars who didn’t on the other. There are so many things that go wrong when it comes to transitioning from a guy who looks like a generational talent at school level into a generational talent at senior level that it’d frighten you.
Injuries, college trouble, relationship trouble, losing the head with the few bob and the attention that the Munster gear brings around UL – all of these turn your trajectory away from the very top of this game and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I can use the fingers on both hands to count the number of lads that have fallen victim to at least two of those pitfalls, one hand for all four.
That’s why I have to be careful. Objectively, it’s impossible to look at the body of work Gene O’Leary Kareem completed at schools level and not put him on the same level at the same age as Calvin Nash, Simon Zebo, Keith Earls, Andrew Conway, Luke Fitzgerald, Caelan Doris, James Ryan, Dan Leavy and Garry Ringrose. But, at the same time, that kind of hype and expectation can be poisonous for a young man, no matter how solid a head he has on his shoulders (as he has, by all accounts).
Let me say this though, because I really believe it. If Gene O’Leary Kareem can avoid the landmines I mentioned earlier and stay focused on improving every week in training on both sides of the ball from the minute he walks through the doors of the HPC as a full academy member, he could be a generational talent for Munster and Irish Rugby.
I know, I know. Hype.
But it’s unavoidable with O’Leary Kareem. I went to this year’s Munster Senior Cup final in Virgin Media Park to see Pres take on a huge CBC pack. Going into the game, I was told by everyone that O’Leary Kareem was absolutely unbelievable. Even with that, they undersold him.
I’d seen him in the Senior Cup the year before and saw him tear up a fairly young Munchins side in the semi-final but CBC were a different story. They had the best pack in the country at this level in my opinion so how would O’Leary Kareem play on the back foot? He played like such a thing was only a problem for other players.
He was the standout player in a match featuring some unbelievable talent like Michael Foy, James O’Leary and others. He was unplayable, on both sides of the ball.
I like to judge a player’s impact in a game like this against his peers by the buzz they create after the game. I was in the old Musgrave Park when Keith Earls destroyed the Dragons in 2008 as a 21-year-old, and all anyone was talking about walking out of the stadium was him.
Anyone who was at that final came away talking and buzzing about one guy, and that guy was Gene O’Leary Kareem.
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Gene O’Leary Kareem togs out around 5’11″/6’0″ by my reckoning and looks to be around 85kg. If your only reference point for midfielders begins and ends with Jamie Roberts, your initial reaction to that is that he’s too small. This is not a concern for me. The modern-day outside centre has been getting smaller and smaller as we head into the post-50/22 era. This new breed of outside centres who double up, essentially, as more creative, deep-lying wingers defy the convention that both of your midfielders need to be 6’3″/105kg+ juggernauts. That isn’t to say that one of your midfield or outside backs shouldn’t have that power profile (because you need that somewhere in your backline) but for most teams who are playing an on-ball style, there is a growing demand for a more mobile, agile, creative player in those edge roles.
Look at Henco Van Wyk for the Lions. Paul Costes for Toulouse. UJ Seuteni for La Rochelle. Even Luhkanyo Am and Jessie Kriel for the Springboks fall into this descriptor of lighter build – comfortably under 100kg – and shorter than 6’1″. Not all of them are Gene O’Leary Kareem’s role set – a Slashing Edge Playmaker – but they all fill into this newer trend of smaller, lighter midfielders.
O’Leary Kareem, who only turned 19 this month and joins the academy right out of school, will probably play closer to 90/95kg given his strong frame but he mustn’t lose his pace, agility and natural evasion.
When I talk about the role set of a Slashing Edge Playmaker, what qualities are we looking for? You’re generally going to be a bit smaller and lighter than the typical midfielder, but you’ve got to bring pace, evasion and a real threat on transition from the middle of the field.
O’Leary Kareem has deceptive pace and when you combine that with his natural agility and evasion, he can create space where others can’t. On this one, for example, he takes the ball in the middle of the field and creates a pocket of disruption all on his own before throwing an offload out of it.
This is impressive awareness and confidence combined with real athleticism. What else do you need as a Slashing Edge Playmaker? Well, you need to be a very accomplished passer, have the pace and power to force outside compressions and also have the close-range offloading skill set to pass out of those compressions at full tilt. O’Leary Kareem has all of these qualities and, even better, a ferocious game IQ to the point that he’s a real apex predator in that 3/4 space.
O’Leary Kareem has proper elite-level killer instincts and all the physical qualities to make defenders pay. He knows his offloading spooks them because he knows they’ve seen him do it. He knows they’re worried about his drive through the tackle, so he uses their adjustment to that to create space for others running off him. These are not skills that everyone has at this age. I’d go as far to say as that there are a lot of pros that don’t have them.
Of course, he has physical seasoning to do and this upcoming preseason will be a really exciting test of his physical ability but also his mental ability. PBC ran some really complex schemes last season, so I have no doubt he’ll be intellectually able for Prendergast’s system as the #13 role we already have looks tailor-made for him.
The key will be scaling himself up physically and mentally. I’d also expect him to be a u20 starter as it stands as well as playing AIL.
From there, it’ll be down to injury luck and Gene himself. If he stays focused – laser-focused – on his game and getting better every single day working with guys like Craig Casey, Conor Murray, Jack Crowley, Billy Burns, Alex Nankivell, Calvin Nash and Thaakir Abrahams, there is genuinely nowhere Gene O’Leary Kareem can’t go.
He has all the hallmarks of a generational talent and, even better, he holds all the keys to unlocking that level within himself. With some time, patience and the luck everyone needs, Gene O’Leary Kareem can be a proper star, not just in Cork, not just in Munster and not just in Ireland. There’s just a lot of hard work between that point and now.
