Cathal Dowd
A preview of the British & Irish Lions’ upcoming tour of Australia took place at Waterpark Rugby Football Club on Saturday afternoon.
An expert panel of former Waterpark youth star and current Munster flanker Jack O’Donoghue, ex-Munster and Biarritz player Dave O’Callaghan, and renowned rugby journalist Murray Kinsella were in Ballynakill to provide insight into the environment of professional rugby and weigh up the Lions’ chances against the Wallabies.
The Lions kicked off their tour in the Aviva Stadium against Argentina last night, losing out 28-24 against Los Pumas after a sensational Santiago Cordera try just before the hour mark handed the South Americans victory in Dublin.
Despite this early blow, the Lions are, unusually in their history, the favorites in the upcoming series against Australia. Much discussion surrounds tactics and personnel during Lions tours, but the speakers at Waterpark were attempting to cut through the noise, giving an experienced insight into the goings-on of a Lions campaign and providing some insightful predictions.
Event organiser William Walsh was delighted with the turnout, telling WLR, “It’s great to see everyone down here at Waterpark, excited for the talk and listening to the lads.” Speaking then on the funds raised by ticket sales, he continued, “It’s definitely going to help with the underage teams and the senior teams in terms of all the equipment required to put out high-performing teams on a weekly basis”.
Waterford man O’Donoghue spoke on how it felt coming back to where it all began, “I love coming back here, I love seeing some familiar faces who would have helped me on my journey, coached me, volunteered, so any opportunity to come back and help the club, I love it.” The two-time Irish international described the loss to Argentina as “teething problems” and while “Unfortunately they didn’t get the result they wanted but in some aspects of the game they played really well, the set pieces were good, like the scrum”.
A great community spirit surrounded the event, which included brunch at the clubhouse to go along with the panel’s musings. Not least, as both O’Donoghue and Kinsella are former Waterpark players, and O’Callaghan is heavily involved with the club’s senior team, but also helped by the good weather, which brought in the crowds.
O’Callaghan was hopeful that bringing in people of his caliber within the rugby world, coaching or playing, would help take the club to the next level “That’s the job, that’s the plan, it’s a collective effort and you can see with these events, like the one organised today, all the ambition behind the scenes and in the underage structure. The challenge for us is to transfer that to the senior group and make sure we are getting those younger players coming through. We want to create something that’s a long term fix, rather than something overnight, but that is within our grasp”.
The Lions next face Western Force in Perth in their first warm-up game on Australian soil. Kinsella, who rounded out the panel, noted the label of favourites for the Lions this series was given “Deservedly I think, Australia haven’t had a good couple of years”, but that it won’t be comfortable by any means, “Australia have a really good starting fifteen, their bench might not be as powerful as the Lions, but what we have seen in the last year with Australia beating Scotland, Wales, England ,and running Ireland very close shows that it will be very competitive tour and that’s what we need”.
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