FINNISH ARTICLE
Meet Jussi Viljanen, the international captain who is starring in Division 2A of the All-Ireland League as the...
We pay for our kit, our training camps and our away trips but that’s just the way it is, you pay for the honour
THE All-Ireland League is the Pete Best of Irish rugby. Like the drummer famously dumped as the Beatles were taking off, the AIL was a key part of our rugby narrative in the early years of professionalism before being cast aside just before the game exploded in success and popularity.
It has now taking up permanent residence on the outside looking in but, while there might still be some bitter muttering about might-havebeens, mostly the clubs just get on with it and, away from the hype, hysteria and polished PR of the pro game, the most compelling stories are found in AIL heartland.
A trip to a Division 2A game in Stradbrook to watch Blackrock host Dolphin a few weeks ago unearthed one such tale.
The visitors lost the game to a late try but their yellow-haired playmaker caught the eye. Switching regularly between 10 and 12, he had an aura of adventure and confidence about his play and we sought out one of the travelling supporters for further information.
‘Who’s that guy with the blond hair wearing No10?’
‘Oh, that’s Jussi, from Finland, sound lad…’ ‘Finland?’ ‘Yeah, it turns out he is the captain of their national team… actually, we were just saying there on the way up, he’s the first senior international captain to play for the club since Terry (Kingston, exIreland captain).’
‘How the hell did he end up with Dolphin?’
‘His missus is working in Cork and he just wandered in and asked to play.’
Dolphin are very glad he did. The Finnish captain (full name Jussi Viljanen, aged 26) only started training with the senior squad in January and has played a central role in the recent wins that have dragged them clear of relegation danger. In a short space of time, it has made Viljanen something of a cult hero at the club.
It also makes his backstory worth telling and, over the course nearly an hour’s conversation
last week, Finland’s foremost rugby player opened a window on the underbelly of the game we are rarely made aware of, explaining how difficult it is to operate on rugby’s far-flung fringes.
It’s a very personal tale of pride, perseverance and remarkable commitment...
STARTING WITH A BAN
Finland is a sports-mad country. Football and ice hockey are the main pursuits but formula one, floorball (a version of indoor hockey) and athletics are right up there, also. Rugby doesn’t register, certainly not in Orivesi, the country town (population 10,000) where Viljanen grew up, so how did he first get into it? The answer, somewhat bizarrely, is through bible study. ‘As a kid, I used to play all the sports, football, ice hockey, athletics, a little bit of basketball – ice hockey was the big one, that’s really popular. ‘I got into rugby at 14 and it’s a bit weird how it happened. Because of our religion in Finland, when we are 13 or 14, we go to these Christian camps – it’s something we need to do to get married in a church later on. ‘One of the mentors at the camp had played rugby and started telling stories about the matches he had played in. I had never even heard of rugby but his stories fascinated me and I was desperate to try it.
‘We didn’t have a rugby ball so we started throwing a basketball around. A few weeks after that, myself and a few friends went to the nearest rugby club, 40km away in a town called Tampere. They were really welcoming, every club in Finland is struggling for players and they were excited getting a few young lads in.
‘I actually played my first senior game when I was 15. No one in Finland had ever played senior rugby that young and we didn’t even know it was illegal. I scored a hat-trick in my second game playing at scrumhalf and that got a bit of attention, which is when the Finnish Federation stepped in and pulled me out because I was too young.
‘I was forced to stay out of the game until I was 17. It was really cruel, because I knew I could handle the senior game and all I wanted to do was play.’
THE WILKINSON FACTOR
Although prohibited from playing because of his age, the teenage Viljanen had the bug and took to training on his own in Orivesi, inspired by the obsessive example of his idol, England World Cup-winning out-half Jonny Wilkinson
‘Most of my friends quit because there were no games. But I asked to borrow a ball and just started training all the time on my own. I’m pretty self-learned to be honest because, living 40km away from the club, there were no coaches.
‘I loved watching guys like Dan Carter but definitely the biggest influence for me was Jonny Wilkinson. He was in his prime back then. What I really admired about him was his mentality and work ethic, he was nuts really in terms of the way he went about improving himself, but he had it all, he was the complete player.’
THE ‘LABOUR OF LOVE’
When Viljanen hit 17, he was allowed to play senior again for Tambere and was almost immediately called up to the national squad. He has been in it ever since, yet because of the few fixtures on the Finnish rugby calendar has only amassed 26 caps - the most recent being last weekend’s 32-29 win over Austria in Vienna.
‘We play four games a year in European Conference 2, two in the spring and two in the autumn and maybe a couple of friendlies. My first cap was at 18 against Bulgaria and the most interesting trips are definitely to Eastern Europe, places like Bosnia and Bulgaria.
‘Some of it is pretty dodgy, how these countries treat you can be very challenging. The home nation is always responsible for transportation and I remember in Bulgaria, it was well over 30 degrees and what was supposed to be a halfhour journey to the ground took over two hours - the bus driver just drove by the intersection he was supposed to take and that was that. We lost that game.
‘Funding is a real challenge with Finland. We go to our own pockets quite a lot, we have to pay for own kits, we have to pay for our training camps, we pay a part of the expenses for away trips but it’s getting better, we are getting more recognition and more sponsors.
‘It is definitely improving but really, playing for Finland is a labour of love, you pay for the honour of playing for your country and that is just the way it is.
‘I’m studying to be a civil engineer through my university in Finland but working in marketing in Cork and last week, I flew out of Cork at 6am on Thursday, joined up with the team in Vienna that afternoon, trained on Friday, played the match on Saturday and then flew back for work. It’s tough but we won and it’s worth it.
‘It is a big commitment, players have to take time off work and then pay out themselves on top of that and it is asking a lot but we love and respect the jersey so much and know playing for Finland is such a special thing.
‘You never get massive crowds, sometimes you get five or six hundred people depending on where you play, but however many people
are watching, there is always a real sense of pride.’
LEARNING TO BE A LEADER
Viljanen is a self-professed rugby nerd, carrying a voracious desire to assimilate as much knowledge as he can. Pursuing that goal has brought him to England, New Zealand and now Ireland, where he plans to stay for a few more years.
‘I really like it here. My fiancé has a permanent job in Eli Lilly and I am really enjoying playing AIL, which is the same standard, maybe a little better, than the international rugby I play. I intend to keep playing for Finland, too, I have been captain since 2017. I think the rugby experience I gained abroad was a big factor.
‘I played for a club called Old Dartfordians in south east London, the city was too big for me but the rugby went well and it was a great stepping stone to go and play in New Zealand.
‘Over there, I played in Christchurch for the UC club. That was a different intensity entirely, everybody knows rugby and wants to talk rugby and you learn so much, it was amazing. I missed out on games for Finland by being in New Zealand but, as a rugby player, that experience was a turning point , I learned so much. I learned to watch the game so differently, I came back a different man.
‘When I returned, I found players were looking to me because of the knowledge I had gained abroad. I felt a responsibility to lead the team, because I had experiences no one else had from New Zealand. Getting the captaincy was huge, an incredible honour. I’m not a big speaker, I like to lead by example with actions. When it comes to the match, every player should be hyped by playing for their country and they always are.’
STRONG FINNISH
‘My ambitions for Finnish rugby are simple – just to get bigger, to get more players, to get more recognition and to get kids to play rugby, that’s the big one because we don’t have junior rugby over there, it’s not really in the schools.
‘Rugby has been growing slowly but steadily in my time.
‘When I started playing, the league was probably six teams and now there are 15 to 18 clubs, some of them are not active at the moment, but in a country where other sports like football and ice hockey especially but also basketball, baseball and other sports are much more prominent, it is a real challenge but rugby is definitely growing.
‘And our national side is improving, in terms of set up and skills.
‘We beat Austria last weekend which was a massive result for us and we have a really good thing going on right now. ‘We are miles away from professional rugby, we are ranked 92 in the world but it doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t matter, there is so much pride in having the opportunity to play for Finland.’
‘For myself, I just want to keep playing for Finland as long as I can.
‘I think as long as I feel I can be effective for the team, I want to be part of it, it means everything to me.’