Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
ROARING 20S INSPIRE HUGO
Keenan recalls an Irish fightback to remember
IRELAND’S young guns will channel the spirit of Manchester to get the Autumn Nations Cup off to the right start.
A quartet of Andy Farrell’s starters – James Ryan, Andrew Porter, Jacob Stockdale and Hugo Keenan – played in the side that found itself 17-0 down to Wales in the first game of the Under-20 World Cup in 2016.
And yet, with Stockdale at full-back as he is again tonight, Ireland turned it around to win 26-25.
“It was a real special one, Wales were the Grand Slam champions,” recalled Keenan. “The big moment of that game, I remember it well, James
Ryan was playing and he went to out-half Bill Johnston and said, ‘Stick the restart on Harrison Keddie’.
“James tore after it, hit him man on ball, got a knock-on and we scored a couple of phases later. We got on the front foot then. If you lose that game then we probably wouldn’t have reached the final , so it was huge turning point.”
Stockdale’s performance in Paris almost a fortnight ago, his second Test game at full-back, drew plenty of criticism.
But the Ulsterman had a superb tournament in those World Cup finals four years ago and Keenan is confident that he will rediscover that sort of form.
“Oh, 100%,” said Keenan. “He’s been training so well, he’s a world class player and I remember in the final against England, that same tournament, he scored an unbelievable try.
“Himself, James and Andrew Porter, I think six months later they were in an Irish squad. He’s some player in fairness to him.” While that trio were on the rise, Keenan was fighting to establish himself as a full-back at star-studded Leinster.
But all that changed after rugby’s restart in August as he burst into the Blues reckoning with a string of top performances on the wing.
The 24-year -old was never jealous about the trio’s swift rise but he admitted: “It gave me confidence. Seeing those lads making the step up so soon makes you realise that international 15s is not far away, that it’s a possibility and in your sights.”
Keenan admits his own experience of Test life has been a “rollercoaster” so far, with the debut victory over Italy followed by the disappointment in France.
“It’s a fresh slate so a great opportunity to bounce back straight away,” he stressed. “Normally at the end of a Six Nations you’d be going back to your provinces and finishing with a defeat could linger over you for a while. But we’ve got a great opportunity to right those wrongs.”