DUB ROCK TURNS TO RUGBY STAR JOHNNY SEXTON
Dublin’s Rock got tips from Sexton Advice ‘invaluable’ in winning All-Ireland
HE grew up idolising Jonny Wilkinson, so maybe it’s a natural progression for Dean Rock to find himself picking the brain of Johnny Sexton at a kicking session, the Leinster and Ireland out-half happy to share his technical knowhow when the pair linked up last year.
That obsessive place-kicking streak has always appealed to the Ballymun Kickhams player. Wilkinson, famously, used to spend Christmas Day on a local pitch fine-tuning his process before gaining sporting immortality with the drop-kick that won the 2003 World Cup final for England.
That affection for the oval-ball game hasn’t diminished and it’s why Rock was an obvious candidate off the Dublin squad for last Monday’s AIG Skills Challenge at Castleknock Golf Club which brought together the All-Ireland champions and the All Black players.
‘I’d watch more rugby than I would football or hurling,’ admits Rock, whose dead-ball accuracy has underpinned Dublin’s fourin-a-row of All-Irelands. ‘I’d watch all the New Zealand club stuff. All that kind of stuff.
‘So yeah, massive interest in the rugby. I’ll probably go along on Saturday, hopefully.’
It led, last year, to a one-on-one session with the equally obsessive Sexton.
‘I would have met Jonny Sexton at a number of different things and it just came up in conversation. We’d bounce a few things off each other and he invited me to come along to a kicking session.
‘I was delighted to go. I went down to Donnybrook, watched him and learned a few things and tailored my training to that the following year.’
He also gained insight from esteemed kicking coach Dave Alred who worked with Wilkinson in rugby and is in big demand across various sporting codes. The performance coach worked more recently with Ryder Cup golf hero and major winner Francesco Molinari.
‘I would have done a session or two with Jonny Sexton and Dave Alred, a kicking session. Yeah, I would have learned a huge amount from that,’ adds Rock. ‘You’re trying to improve each year and try different things. Rather than just read the books, to be able to go out and do different things.
‘A couple of practical sessions with those two guys was invaluable to me.
‘Just the technique and the mindset around the whole thing. Your routine and trying to shift yourself from the team mindset into and individual mindset as quickly as you can for each kick.
‘Little nuggets you would take from meeting a guy like that who has worked with the best guys. He’s done a lot of work with Molinari in the golf.
‘There’s lots of transferable skills between every sport. It’s just about putting them into practice.’
Rock has come a long way since his own school days playing rugby with Catholic University School (CUS) on Leeson Street, a time when he used to take kicks without a kicking tee. ‘I played for six years in school in CUS. So I played Senior Cup for two years. I played against Jack McGrath once. I was standing on the wing, as far away as possible from him! ‘I combined that and the Dublin minors at the time. So yeah, really enjoyed it. It’s a good game.’ Bloodlines were just one reason he opted for an amateur pathway rather than chasing a professional one with his father Barney an All-Ireland winner and darling of Hill 16. ‘Ah I was always a bit better at the football, so I was always going to go with that, at the end of the day. The big thing was to one day play for Dublin rather than play for Leinster or anything like that.
‘It was never any real competition between the two. But I thoroughly enjoyed playing rugby. There are lots of transferrable skills between that and the football. I played full-back or wing. Catch and kick. And place kicks.’
While his day job entails the role of fundraising manager for Stewarts Care, one of the biggest disability organisations in the country, he can understand the obvious appeal of being a professional sportsman like Sexton. ‘From the Dublin perspective, there are lots of similarities between the two in terms of level of professionalism that the inter-county teams are showing nowadays. It’s very similar to the pro game.
‘Obviously the GAA guys aren’t getting paid for it. That’s the big difference. But the tactical work and the physical work, everyone is putting in the same time and hours. Even the professional guys need to rest and recover. I suppose they’re resting and recovering when we’re in work. That’s the main difference.’
Not that Rock’s own time on the pitch has come without speed bumps, his two missed frees early on in this year’s All-Ireland final contributed to Tyrone’s rampant opening, before normal service was resumed.
What goes through his head in moments like that? ‘You f***in’ eejit! It’s gone so quick. The keeper has the ball on the tee. Obviously you have a moment when you’re, like, “s***”.
‘But then you completely change back into the team mindset. You think, what can I do now to try and turn over the kick-out or mark up your man. And that’s all it was.
‘I managed to get one (point) from play, got myself into it. Then the rest came from there. You don’t plan to miss your first two frees in a final. You plan for them to go over the bar.
‘But a bit of mental strength and bit of belief in yourself. You’re not going to miss three in a row.’
A number of Dublin Gaelic games stars were brought together with players from Rugby World Cup champions New Zealand for the the AIG Skills Challenge which took place in Castleknock Golf Club earlier this week