Gavan Casey

JOSH IOANE HAS used the last of the fine weather in Galway to get to know some of his new Connacht teammates on the golf course.

He’s part of a semi-regular fourball, now, with Bundee Aki, Peter Dooley and fellow new arrival Piers O’Conor, the latter of whom has found a home on the green just as quickly as he’s taken to the green jersey.

“Piers is really nice — I think last time he shot 78,” Ioane says of O’Connor.

“My handicap’s like 21, so I’m not that great!”

On wetter days, Ioane and a Kiwi-led crew choose a Galway cafe and hunker in to play cards. The out-half plays PlayStation online, too, with a variety of younger teammates.

“It’s just putting myself into different groups here and there,” says Ioane, who has moved to Ireland with his partner and their 18-month-old daughter. Three will become four in January, when Josh and Eloise welcome baby Ari’s first sibling.

As such, Ioane hasn’t yet tasted the Galway nightlife, nor does he seek it. It’s another aspect of his life that he left in his rearview even before moving to Ireland.

Ioane was in March 2021 suspended by the Highlanders, along with five teammates, when a fed-up neighbour had enough of their house parties and made a noise complaint to Dunedin police. While another neighbour described them to the New Zealand Herald at the time as being little more than “typical young-people parties”, Ioane, nearly 26, was entering his prime rugby years.

He left Dunedin three months later to join the Chiefs, a fresh start and a new environment in which to grow up, relatively speaking.

While his career in Hamilton never truly ignited (Ioane was mostly squeezed out of the Chiefs’ XV by Damian McKenzie), events off the field in early 2023 dictated that Ioane entered a new stage of his life either way. It’s one that he has been navigating ever since.

“I think about that sometimes,” Ioane says of his more carefree years. “My partner and I, we talk about, ‘Ugh, a few years ago we were doing this,’ and ‘a few years ago we were doing that.’ Now, I barely even drink at all.

“I think becoming a father has played a big part in that. I love being a father. My daughter’s one and a half now.

I’ve been through a lot over the last couple of years. I lost my father last year and then I became a father two weeks later. And I think when you go through something like that, you’re forced to grow up pretty quickly.

“So, when I look back on that, I feel I’ve learned from that. Like I said, I’ve been through a lot in the last couple of years and I feel like I’m coming out the other side a lot more mature.”

With those major changes to Ioane’s familial circumstances, and another to come early in the new year, the decision to leave their support network was not one that Josh or partner Eloise took lightly.

Connacht had tabs on the out-half for a couple of years and when it came to making their pitch, it helped in no small part that their head of rugby operations, Tim Allnut, is a Kiwi.

Ioane also consulted with his former Otago teammate Sean Jansen, who sold not only the Galway way of life but the potential symbiosis between Connacht’s style of rugby under Pete Wilkins and Ioane’s natural game.

“I had a few chats with the coaches and the style of play, I really liked,” Ioane says. “I felt like the people were really good.

“Then meeting Pete, he’s a nice guy and I felt like I was a good fit.

“I definitely like to run the ball. I feel like since I was a kid, that’s just what I like to do and I enjoy it, and it’s just finding that balance with the kicking and running which is definitely something that I’ll work on and try not to get carried away; just putting my general hat on and sitting in the pocket and using my boot.

“But running the ball, getting on the front foot, playmaking, that’s the sort of stuff that I enjoy.”

There are cultural differences to be found within the rugby, too, naturally. “Teams defend the space a lot as opposed to back home where people are man-focused,” Ioane notes.

But perhaps the most jarring change Ioane has experienced in Ireland so far was how he felt in advance of his Connacht debut, a baptism of fire against Munster in Limerick.

“I was so nervous for that game,” Ioane exhales.

I remember coming off the field, I was telling Ben [Murphy], ‘Man, I was so nervous for this game.’ Even in the week leading up, on the Monday, I was nervous for the game on Saturday.

“It meant a lot because I’ve come across the world, new people, and I just wanted to earn my new teammates’ respect. Hopefully I got it.

“It was a great game. We were unlucky there. It was a great experience playing in Thomond Park, in Munster — an interpro for my first game. It was cool.”

Ioane, who missed Connacht’s victory over Scarlets in Llanelli last Friday with a head injury, has followed return-to-play protocols and will return for his second interpro in three games when his side takes on Ulster at Kingspan Stadium this Saturday.

His teammates have warned him of the hostilities that await at Ravenhill but the overriding message has been simple: “‘Just enjoy it.’”

The sides enter Saturday night’s fixture in contrasting form: whereas Ulster brought home only a single point from their two-game trip to South Africa, Connacht have in the last couple of weeks dug out victories that may well have eluded them in recent seasons.

Factor in their performance and two bonus points in a narrow defeat to Munster, and the western province are tracking nicely towards Ulster, against whom all four of their most recent meetings have been settled by a single score.

“It’s been awesome,” Ioane says of his side’s early-season form. “Like, if you look at our wins: our first win (v Sharks), we were down at half-time and the boys came back. And you look at last week’s win (v Scarlets), Fordey’s kick in the last couple of minutes… it’s been a gutsy effort.

“We could have been 3-0 but we could even be 0-3, so the boys have dug deep.

“Just talking to the lads, they said, ‘Last year, would we have won those close ones? Not sure.’

“But this year, it feels a little bit different that we can dig deep and win these tight ones.”