Mcfarland joins chorus singing the praises of rising star Baloucoune
WHEN asked if Robert Baloucoune looked a future Irish international on southern radio earlier this month, Keith Wood was emphatic in response.
“All day,” the former international skipper told Newstalk’s Off The Ball.
And Wood is not alone in such conviction. Increasingly, the 23-year-old former Sevens player looks every inch a Test player in waiting.
In truth, if not for Covid-19 and a pair of injuries, the Ulster wing may well have already pulled on a green jersey.
Not long before the game went into its first lockdown back in March of last year, Andy Farrell had called the Enniskillen native to the IRFU’S High Performance centre to train alongside the squad during the 2020 Six Nations, and the head coach is thought to have been impressed with what he saw.
With 14 tries in last 19 Ulster starts, it’s easy to see why, while it been quite remarkable just how sharp he has appeared in recent weeks after being out of action for a year and suffering a serious hamstring avulsion that at one stage left him wondering if he would regain his blistering speed.
Against Zebre last weekend, he got over the whitewash once again and, even accounting for the short-handed opposition, looked a threat every time the ball came his way. With this latest effort following on the heels of an interpro when he scored one eye-catching try in the corner and was denied an even more impressive effort through a contentious crossing call in the build-up, he gives the impression of a player who has not missed a beat despite the long-term absence.
“He’s been very impressive,” said Ulster’s head coach Dan Mcfarland.
“He seems to have fitted back in seamlessly after such a long time out. With his skills and his fitting into defensive systems and all the nitty gritty bits of the game that you have to get right, he seems to be on point with. He’s been very impressive.”
Ireland’s right wing of the present, Keith Earls, may be 33-years-old but enjoyed a strong Six Nations and has just been rewarded with a fresh central contract.
Yet the journey from junior rugby with his hometown club to the Aviva Stadium is a compelling one for fans and media alike, while the try-scoring record speaks for itself, creating the temptation to pencil in Baloucoune as the Munster man’s eventual successor.
Mcfarland is naturally wary of prescribing any ceiling onto his budding star but feels his ‘capacity to learn’ will be the key to him ultimately fulfilling his potential for both club and, hopefully, country.
“I think he’s on a really good trajectory,” he added.
“I’m not going to forecast where he can get to but he has a lot of potential.
“I think he has the potential to be able to play at Test level. Whether he’s at that level yet, probably not. He’s inexperienced, he needs to continue to be tested regularly, to be going through the scenarios that are going to stress him and help him learn.
“But he’s obviously got the athletic ability, he’s got the understanding for how defence and attack work and, on top of that, the most important thing, he has the capacity to learn.”
While Ulster are not in action this week, they will no doubt be interested observers when a Guinness PRO14 champion is crowned on Saturday evening at the end of another all-ireland final, this time between Leinster and Munster.
Unusually close to the Six Nations the season, Leinster were yesterday counting the cost of that schedule after they were forced to rule out key trio Garry Ringrose, Will Connors and James Ryan thanks to injuries sustained while on international duty.
‘Robert needs to continue to be tested regularly’