FORMER IRELAND, LEINSTER, and Lions back row Seán O’Brien has signed for All-Ireland League Division 1B club Naas.
O’Brien retired from professional rugby at the end of last season with London Irish and has since moved back to Ireland to take up a role as Leinster’s contact skills coach.
The 35-year-old had hoped to join home club Tullow and play junior rugby, but was denied that chance when his application to feature in the Towns Cup and Leinster League was rejected by Leinster Rugby’s domestic committee.
The committee pointed to a Leinster Rugby regulation that states players who have been professionals within the preceding two seasons cannot go straight into junior club rugby.
“All players who have played international (including 7’s), provincial, or professional rugby in any jurisdiction for the Senior full team, in the current or last 2 preceding seasons shall be ineligible to participate in any Competitions,” reads the regulation.
The regulations do not prevent O’Brien or any other recently-retired ex-pro from going straight back into AIL rugby and so, the Tullow Tank has now signed for Naas.
As well as playing for Leinster 126 times, O’Brien won 56 Ireland caps and would have made plenty more appearances in the green jersey but for injuries. He toured with the British and Irish Lions in 2013 and 2017, featuring in five Tests.
O’Brien left Leinster for London Irish in 2019 and spent three seasons with the Premiership club before calling time on his playing career.
He has earned positive reports from within Leinster about his contact skills coaching since re-joining the province during the summer.
And O’Brien will continue to play amateur rugby with Naas, who were beaten by Old Wesley in the opening game of their AIL season last weekend. Former Connacht out-half Craig Ronaldson is now a player/coach with the club and there will be huge excitement about the addition of O’Brien.
Ex-Munster man Johne Murphy is the club’s head coach and welcomed the new signing.
“We had a very successful season last year and as we start off the season having a player of Seán’s calibre will develop our players,” said Murphy.
“They will learn a lot from the experience that Seán brings from his playing career. The whole Club from grass roots upwards including all our players from minis upwards, all our coaches right across all age groups and also the amazing supporters that we have in Naas – he will bring plenty of enjoyment to everyone in our amazing Club. We are all looking forward to having him on our team.”
Quality player, very surprised he was dropped.
I’d be very surprised if he was dropped in the first place as he needed match time. He’s better than Jager in all facets that I’ve seen, scrum, maul and as we’ve all seen, in the lose. Jager, just not seeing it with him especially scrum. Am I missing something???
@Noel Lynn: Bealham is certainly well ahead of Jager and all other TH (Furlong apart) in Ireland, but I think Jager is doing a better job than you’re giving credit for. He’s been very good at scrum time for munster, especially when he came up against Porter, and was solid against Wales. His ruck defense was excellent both clearing and counter rucking and his goal line defense was superb. His lineout work wasn’t up to scratch IMO and he still needs to improve his S&C but he’s certainly got a high ceiling and a great addition to our TH stock.
@Noel Lynn: Short answer – yes
Easily the best TH after Furlong, who seems to have recovered some of his previous form. Great to have several options here between Furlong, Bealham, O’Toole and Jager. The order is not important as they are all playing well at the moment.
Literally no one else is suprised.
@Thesaltyurchin: I’m surprised, arguably pushing Furlong for a starting spot
Bealham is a quality player but I think it’s getting a bit clearer that farrell and his coaches are huge fans of jager. To go from the ‘training squad’ to the verge of the 1st choice 23 over a couple of weeks is pretty phenomenonal
@munsterman: jager has plenty to work on to over take Bealham. He may not have over taken TO’T yet, so 1 step at a time.
@Patrick O’Sullivan: well I’ve never seen farrell move so quickly to promote a player in a meaningful match. Even players like Joe Mccarthy and crowley had to put in their time in camp for a year or so. There’s every chance that bealham will be back-up th v England but you wouldn’t bet on it
@munsterman: There’s every chance that Bealham will start and Jager on the bench if Furlong injured.
@Con Cussed: yea that’d be the most likely scenario I’d imagine. It’s quite tough on otoole who’s been very good for Ireland too
@munsterman: Agreed. It just means the pressure is now on all four to keep the momentum up. It’s a tough position and injuries abound so can see them all getting a chance in the future.
This could mean Furlong has an injury concern… I hope not!
Has anyone authoritative said that Bealham was dropped? As far as I recall the mood music before the Welsh game was that Bealham had proved himself across a number of matches to be no great step down from Furlong; and that Farrell was taking advantage of a game we were almost certain to win to have a look at Jäger off the bench.
Depressing stuff
@Kevin Ryan: when have we ever seen farrell use a competitive game to just have a look at a player? The only time he ever changes up his side much is v the most tier2 of tier2 nations in Nov or else gets A games set up
@munsterman: Giving a guy a debut as a bench prop is not really changing the side much, though. And if he didn’t pick this game, he’d have to wait until the Autumn, assuming SA too strong. Anyways, we’ll see what Farrell does with the selection for the England game.
The story around Bealham is a bit of a head scratcher. Why was he dropped? Some say he needed time off as a new dad. Personally I believe the coaches think Jager is a better prop. When your coach uses faint praise to describe your last performance then you are in trouble. I think Farrell described Bealham’s last outing as “decent enough”. In all these scenarios the public never gets a true picture until someone writes a book.
@Tom Reilly: I seem to have missed him saying that about Bealham – was that in a press conference? I checked the post Italy match press conference again to refresh my memory, and Faz was effusive in his praise of the set piece, calling it excellent and top notch, so I’m surprised he would then be naming Finlay as not being a top performer. A lot of media said that Finlay was doing as much as he could possibly do to challenge Furlong for the starting berth on the back of his performance against Italy, so I don’t think I’m the only one who thought he performed excellent in that match.
@Tom Reilly: ah, I heard it now – it was from the pre-Wales match conference. To be honest, the way I hear it, it seemed more so saying that Oli deserved a chance in spite of Bealham having a decent performance. TBH, I think he couldn’t say “Wales’ scrum is poor so this is the best chance to give Oli a tryout in the six nations window”, so has to justify it on the basis of competition for places. If he said Finlay was excellent, then he would effectively be needing to say that Oli is even better, which would be a huge amount of pressure to put on a debutant. So, he kind of has to nearly qualify Bealham’s performance so as not to put down Wales.
@JoeVlogs: As I said earlier it is hard to know what exactly is going on. I think most people think Bealham did not deserve to be dropped from a playing point of view. Maybe something else is going on.
The euphemism that Alex Ferguson developed to replace “dropped” was “rotated.” The image that most of us have of a “dropped” player is of someone so bad in the last match that they had to be replaced. Sometimes it is about building squad depth, other times you were the Lions captain last week and this week not in the 23 – an utterly unexplainable event.
I suspect that Furlong has twinged his hamstring. If Furlong is out, Bealham absolutely starts ahead of Jager – and we all know that.
@PatN: I meant calf not hamstring
Bealham should be pushing Furlong for a starting position not getting dropped
When was the last v good game from Furlong?
@Derek Casserly: Last week!
There is much debate about the word “dropped” concerning Bealham. Was he or wasn’t he dropped. IMO if a player is available for selection, has been selected everytime he is available and then he is not selected, then he is indeed deemed “dropped”.
Let’s stop using the word “dropped”. To play at elite level you need a squad of 35 players and the ability to get game time into all of them. ( let’s not repeat RWC errors from the past). Rotatated is a much better word.