WHILE MOST OF his Leinster team-mates involved in last weekend’s Champions Cup final will rest up this weekend, Hugo Keenan is onto the next challenge with the Ireland 7s as he sets off on what he hopes will be the road to an Olympic gold medal.
Ireland’s bid for glory in the men’s and women’s competitions in Paris at the end of July takes another step up tomorrow in Madrid where both sides kick off the deciding leg of the SVNS World Series in temperatures of around 30ºC.
Keenan has some catching up to do having last played 7s in 2019. That said, he is one of the best rugby players in the world and if the re-adaptation goes well, Ireland have gained a serious weapon for the Olympics.
The 27-year-old was a key man for this team from 2017 until 2019 and regularly speaks about his time in the set-up as crucial to his subsequent rise in 15s rugby with Leinster and Ireland. 7s tests your core skills – tackling, evading, passing, rucking – in a magnified way and Keenan became a better player for honing them in that setting.
His previous experience should help him to settle in quickly. He knows the intricacies and tactics of 7s, but also the physical demands of playing several short games in the course of one day. Warming up, warming down, refuelling, resting, warming up, warming down, refuelling, resting – it’s all very different to 15s.
There are also things like all teams sharing the same hotel and facilities. You could end up sitting with a South African, a Kiwi, and a Fijian for breakfast or sharing the lift with an Aussie, a Canadian, and a Brazilian. The atmosphere around games is all about the party, testing players’ ability to concentrate at the right times. Keenan knows all this.
He is among the fittest players in the world. Keenan’s record of 4 minutes and 11 seconds for the Bronco test is the fastest we have come across in rugby. So he’s well able for the demand for sustained high-speed effort that 7s brings.
We know his core skills are exceptional too and while he was a little rusty in last weekend’s final, his time on the sidelines in recent months should mean he has plenty of energy in the tank at this stage of the campaign.
Keenan comes into an Ireland men’s 7s squad that has enjoyed an excellent season. They came second in the SVNS table, their best finish ever, having delivered great consistency and only been narrowly pipped for top spot by Argentina. Ireland didn’t win any legs but had a second-place finish in Singapore and were third in three other tournaments.
This weekend’s final leg in Madrid is a winner-takes-all competition for the SVNS title, meaning it serves as great preparation for the Olympics.
Coached by ex-Ulster and Ireland wing James Topping, also a 7s international, and captained by the charismatic Harry McNulty, Ireland have been helped by the return of the brilliant Terry Kennedy this season after his sabbatical, while Zac Ward has emerged as an important player.
The format of the SVNS series also means that the Ireland women’s team could be crowned champions this weekend despite an inconsistent season. They had the huge high of winning a series leg for the first time in Perth in January but have struggled since, with no semi-final appearances.
Still, we know this Ireland group has quality. Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe is a proven force, stalwarts like Eve Higgins, Stacey Flood and Lucy Mulhall have class, while Beibhinn Parsons is a supreme athlete. Ashleigh Orchard – neé Baxter – is back in the mix, while teenager Katie Corrigan is set for her debut this weekend having shone in the 15s Six Nations.
For Allan Temple-Jones’ side, it’s a case of tapping into the magic of that weekend in Perth and putting the rest of this season’s seventh-place effort in the series behind them. They wipe the slate clean for Madrid and go after gold.
That’s the plan for the Olympics in Paris too. The men’s tournament runs from 24 to 27 July, with the women’s competition from 28 to 30 July. Both teams will be gunning for gold and while they won’t be favourites, those hopes are not unrealistic.
Following on from Madrid, Ireland will be heading to Croatia next weekend for the first leg of the Rugby Europe 7s Championship.
Both squads will likely be rotated for that weekend in the city of Makarska, allowing other Olympic hopefuls to state their case as well as ensuring the likes of Keenan and Connacht wing Andrew Smith – another who has already played 7s – to continue their adaptation.
It’s expected that the final 12-player squads [down from 13 last time] for the Olympics will be announced on Monday 17 June, with Team Ireland having to ratify those IRFU selections.
It will be a tough process for Topping, Jones, and outgoing IRFU performance director David Nucifora to pick the Olympic squads. Some excellent players who have had big roles in Ireland’s rise in 7s could cruelly miss out.
The second and final leg of the Rugby Europe 7s Championship takes place in Hamburg, Germany on the weekend of 28/29/30, providing more competition prep for the Olympics.
Ireland then travel to Tours in France in early July for a 1o-day training camp. Ireland will bring both of their 12-player squads and an additional four players for each group to that camp.
They will use the same hotel and training facilities as Andy Farrell’s Ireland used as their base at last year’s Rugby World Cup in Tours, a lovely city in the Loire Valley around three hours south-west of Paris.
Indeed, this 7s training camp came about when Nucifora was in Tours with Farrell’s squad. He liked the place, invited the 7s staff over to have a look, and booked it for early July. This is Nucifora’s final chapter after a decade with the IRFU. Having been the man to relaunch the men’s 7s team and invest time, effort, and money into the programme, Nucifora is hoping to go out on a high.
Having completed that final training camp in Tours, the Ireland squads will travel to Paris and check into the brand-new athletes’ village on the banks of the River Seine.
The likes of McNulty and Kennedy have been part of the Olympics before but Tokyo 2021 was a different time in the world so this experience could be even more special. It’s nothing like what 15s rugby can offer players. The athletes’ village will house more than 14,000 athletes from all over the world. The Olympic Games are simply on a different scale from anything in rugby.
That’s why Keenan couldn’t resist taking a shot at being part of the adventure this summer. The next few months could give these Ireland 7s players the highlight of a lifetime.
Ireland men’s squad for Madrid:
Niall Comerford (UCD RFC)
Jordan Conroy (Buccaneers RFC)
Sean Cribbin (Suttonians RFC)
Billy Dardis (Terenure College RFC)
Hugo Keenan (UCD RFC/Leinster)
Terry Kennedy (St. Mary’s College RFC)
Hugo Lennox (Skerries RFC)
Harry McNulty (UCD RFC) (capt)
Gavin Mullin (UCD RFC)
Chay Mullins (Galway Corinthians RFC/Connacht/IQ Rugby)
Aaron O’Sullivan (Blackrock College RFC)
Andrew Smith (Clontarf FC/Connacht)
Zac Ward (Ballynahinch RFC)
Ireland women’s squad for Madrid:
Megan Burns (Blackrock College RFC)
Katie Corrigan (Old Belvedere RFC)
Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe (Railway Union RFC) (captain)
Stacey Flood (Railway Union RFC)
Eve Higgins (Railway Union RFC)
Erin King (Old Belvedere RFC)
Vicky Elmes Kinlan (Wicklow RFC)
Emily Lane (Blackrock College RFC)
Kate Farrell McCabe (Suttonians RFC)
Anna McGann (Railway Union RFC)
Ashleigh Orchard (Cooke RFC)
Béibhinn Parsons (Blackrock College RFC)
Aoibheann Reilly (Blackrock College RFC)
Fixtures at Metropolitano Stadium, Madrid:
All games shown live on RugbyPass TV
Friday 31 May
12.51pm [all in Irish time] – Ireland Women v Australia
1.37pm – Ireland Men v South Africa
Saturday 1 June
11.00am – Ireland Women v France
12.06pm – Ireland Men v Fiji
2.05pm – Ireland Women v Fiji
3.11pm – Ireland Men v New Zealand
Sunday 2 June
Play-offs & ranking matches
