Supporters have a natural attraction and affinity to the bright, the shiny and the new, players who offer shimmering promise where the only thing still to be determined on closer inspection is whether their talent represents a mirage or an oasis of potential when weighed and measured in the Test-match environment.
Andy Farrell’s Ireland squad for the three Nations Championship matches in Australia and New Zealand contains three sparkling examples in Sean Jansen, Billy Bohan and Sam Illo. The Connacht boys are the new faces. How they got there matters less than how they progress. Injuries provide some opportunities, but all are there on merit.
Farrell knew when he released the squad that it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste. He won’t care but he’s intuitive enough to realise that given the injury profile, there would be an advocacy among supporters for more swingeing changes. Keen students of his squads, in form and content, won’t be surprised he hasn’t subscribed to that philosophy.
The evaluation process never stops. It comes in a variety of guises: Emerging Ireland tours, Ireland XV matches, senior tours to New Zealand, South Africa, Georgia and Portugal, November Tests, the Six Nations and now the Nations Championship. The IRFU was also looking to send a development squad abroad this summer but couldn’t source the right opposition.
There is nothing flippant or whimsical in the way Farrell builds his squads. He, and his coaching team, identify the players and those deemed good enough go through the tempering process. They are rarely plucked from obscurity, instead brought into training camps where they are observed as people as well as players, their capacity to absorb detail and their diligence monitored.
The 25-year-old Illo is an outlier to the last statement, but Jansen (27) and Bohan (20) have been in and around extended Irish squads or one description or another. Delve through any of the relevant statistical flotsam and jetsam in the URC and Jansen’s name jumps out on a regular basis. They made an irresistible case for his call-up.
Born in Dunedin, his Irish grandparents, James Brown (Belfast) and Maura Foster (Monasterevin) met on a boat emigrating to New Zealand as teenagers in the 1950s. He was aware of his Irish heritage growing up but there was no indication it would provide a conduit to Test rugby.
Four years ago, Jansen worked as a builder’s labourer, playing for North Otago in the Heartlands tournament, effectively the third division. He described it thus: “It was country rugby, small rural towns. Amateur, basically.
“You get a hundred bucks [about €50] straight after the game and some petrol money, plus a feed after training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The $100 would be gone after a few beers on the night of the game. I was ambitious, and playing well, but it can be difficult in New Zealand if you don’t get recognition early, same as here.”
An uncle, Luke Jansen, formerly of the Australian Sport Commission, advised his nephew to put together a rugby highlights reel. Jansen paid a mate $50 to make one. Leicester Tigers came calling in the form of the then head coach Steve Borthwick. He impressed sufficiently to be offered a contract, but Connacht materialised with a counter-offer and he plumped for Galway.
Three seasons on, he’s happily ensconced in Knocknacarra with partner Sade and son Izaiah. It’s not all fairytale – injuries curtailed his first season – but he’s kicked on impressively. His 18-stone frame is difficult to stop from close range as the number and nature of his try-scoring exploits reveal.
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His qualities are obvious. He carries and hits hard, his timing on to the ball and the angles he hits cause acute damage to the opposition and he possesses impressive aerobic capacity. Ostensibly a number eight, he can also play at openside flanker depending on the job remit for a specific game.
What might have caught Farrell’s eye is that Jansen is coachable, that much is obvious in watching his development as a player, the little bits he’s added, something the player attributes to team-mates and coaches, most recently Stuart Lancaster. Jansen is at a different stage of his graph potential than Brian Gleeson, Dave McCann or James Culhane, to highlight a few names.
Illo first took up rugby when the family lived in Longford for a couple of years, aged 12, before moving back to Dublin. He attended Wesley College, and although soccer was his first love, he quickly blossomed as a rugby player, while also enjoying tennis and cricket.
He started in the backrow, but was encouraged into the frontrow in the Leinster sub academy, initially at loosehead before moving to his preferred position as tighthead. There were doubts at times and one person who helped to assuage them was a teacher in Wesley.
“One of my school coaches, Iain Wallace, went out of his way to help my development. Then at Leinster, Simon Broughton. Sometimes when things weren’t going the best and I didn’t know if I was going to make it, he’d check on me and see how I was doing. He really believed in me. I doubted myself, ‘Am I good enough?’ And the commitment wasn’t always there, but he gave me a lot of confidence. Then the Under-20s was huge.”
Illo played for the Ireland U20s in 2021 and was offered a senior contract at Connacht. The maturation as a player this season is obvious in his scrum work and his carrying, while his tackling is a standout, an area of the game he loves. He’s enjoyed a few dominant collisions.
Last Halloween, Bohan was playing AIL Division 2A, and from there made his Connacht debut against Georgian side Black Lion. He was called into the extended Six Nations squad and in a couple of weeks will vie for the loosehead Ireland jersey alongside Jeremy Loughman and Tom O’Toole.
A grandson of former Ireland Triple Crown-winning coach Mick Doyle, he inherited some of his father Enda’s – a formidable prop with Lansdowne – qualities; not least his ability to scrum. There are other component parts: his handling, his work-rate and the ability to read the game.
To be called into the extended squad at Six Nations time is one thing, it’s a progression and a half to make a summer tour. Injuries to Andrew Porter, Jack Boyle and Paddy McCarthy opened a pathway but there’s no sentiment to his inclusion.
Farrell believes Bohan can cope or he wouldn’t be on the plane. Although his rise to this point, especially given the position he plays, is remarkable, it’s not an end point for achievement in the short term. One more injury and he could be in a matchday 23.
The Ireland head coach wants to win three Test matches. He’s picked a squad to try to accomplish that task. There is room to manoeuvre, perhaps in the middle game against Japan. By the time they return to Ireland, Farrell will know more about the three uncapped players. But equally they will know more about themselves.
