KIERAN TREADWELL BEGAN this tour as Ulster’s third-choice lock. He ends it as the biggest surprise package, the only player who will feature in all five games, one who has catapulted himself into contention for a World Cup spot next year.
Hard to believe when you consider how his season went. Alan O’Connor had his best year yet for Ulster – captaining the side in Iain Henderson’s absence. Henderson, of course, is the poster boy for Ulster Rugby. Both men are rivals as well as team mates of Treadwell.
Coaches differ in their viewpoints. While Ulster coach Dan McFarland is clearly a big admirer of O’Connor’s understated attributes, Andy Farrell feels Treadwell is better suited to the demands of international rugby, similar to the way he favoured Jamison Gibson-Park over Luke McGrath at a time when Leinster preferred the latter over the former.
In any case, Treadwell arrived in New Zealand with a chance to do something. And he has taken it. There are better players in this Irish squad but no one else’s stock has risen as sharply. From being a fringe contender for a seat on the plane to France next year, he’s now at check-in and ready to load his luggage.
“It has been fantastic being here,” he said of his breakthrough tour. “Being on the field on Saturday when we beat New Zealand, that was just magical. But it’s a fast paced tour. You move on.”
His parents and sister are moving with him on the trip. Mum Liz was born in Longford and moved across to London at a young age. A sense of his heritage was strong growing up, built into him by his mother, his grandparents, the summers back ‘home’ in Longford.
Still, it was a big deal when he chose to leave home comforts six years ago to sign for Ulster. “I’d never lived away from my parents; I was young; it was a big deal to do something like that.”
It has paid off. Ulster have turned into a consistent force at the top end of the URC and are a regular attendee in Champions Cup play-offs. And then there’s Ireland.
In the pecking order of locks, Treadwell is fourth in line, behind James Ryan, Henderson and Tadhg Beirne, thriving under the environment created by Andy Farrell and Paul O’Connell, his hero growing up.
“He was an inspiration to me when I was a kid, so to have this uninterrupted time with him and be able to bounce ideas off him and absorb information is just fantastic.”
Farrell has been impressed. “There are a few lads who have put their hand up, day in day out, and have no problem at all backing up.”
Treadwell is one of those. “He looks like a spring chicken,” says Farrell. “His energy’s fantastic, he’s calling the lineout, which is something that he’s not completely used to, but he’s finding a way within the system to be himself, which is fantastic.
“It means that he’s getting to grips with the group and what it takes to be an international forward.”
Earls too has become a fan, saying: “Treads has seriously impressed me on this tour. I don’t know much about the second row but just the way he carries himself, it’s fantastic.”
First capped in 2017, he then disappeared from view after winning three caps on the summer tour to Japan and autumn series that November. Farrell brought him back for this year’s Six Nations and while it may have taken him five years to become an overnight sensation but he’s here now and barring injury, he isn’t going away.
- Originally published at 04.23
Be a bit awkward walking back into that dressing room after those comments
What a lovely fella
What lovely friends he has as well
Oh no he called me the f word :( Delicate little snowflakes get offended over anything these days
Maybe he thought it was still 1984…. He looks like he’s stuck in 1984
Well his haircut does look a little like Eddie Murphy in his cop days
Lol