Ollie eyes another 100...and England
OLLIE HOSKINS has declared his desire to be a ‘one-club man’ in the Premiership as he targets another century of appearances for London Irish.
The Aussie-born tighthead brought up three figures for the Exiles in last Sunday’s 27-27 draw against Harlequins and marked the occasion with his third Premiership try.
“I’m so proud to have represented this group once let alone 100 times,” he said. “I remember my first start, coming to the club and walking down the hallway and seeing the pictures on the wall and stuff, so to think that my photo is going to be up there is pretty surreal and I am really, really humbled.
“My initial plan when I first came over four years ago was to be here for a couple of years, progress my game, go back home to Australia and crack on there. But coming here has changed my perspective about everything.
“I love the club and I just enjoy my time here so much I don’t want to leave. As long as they are happy to have me, I am happy to stay and rack up a few more caps.”
Hoskins had played 26 games of Super Rugby for Western Force before he decided to up sticks and move to England, where both his mum and dad were born.
The 27-year-old has lived independent of his parents ever since leaving High School at 18, so that side of things wasn’t a problem; however he admits the transition in rugby terms was “a steep learning curve”.
“To be fair, when I came over here, I was absolutely dished up. Skivs (former forwards coach George Skivington) put us through some tough sessions, and I was coming out of scrums with head spins,” he said.
“My first game was against Doncaster at the Mad Stad. I came off the bench and it was a bit of a shock to the system. Robin Hislop was the first player I scrummed against – outside of our guys in training – and he gave me a bit of a hard time if I remember correctly. I’d played Super Rugby before and Irish got relegated after I’d signed so I went from Super Rugby to the Championship and I, naively, thought it was going to be easier than it was.
“Don’t get me wrong, you still scrum hard in Super Rugby but it is different gravy over here. It was a bit of a steep learning curve, a baptism of fire, those first couple of months, but I have kind of grown into it. I have developed and feel I am really strong in that area now although there is still a lot of growth in me.”
With a personality as warm as the Perth sun he has left behind, Hoskins comes across as a homegrown player even though he has only been at the club since the start of the 2016/17 season.
And he says the trials and tribulations that the club have been through during that time have only cemented the relationship.
“I have played in the Championship twice since I’ve been here and I am really emotionally invested in the success of the club,” he said. “While I’m not an academy kid, a lot of guys I have played with are – guys like Tom Parton Ollie Hassell-Collins, Ben Loader, Matty Williams, Theo Brophy-Clews, Jack
Cooke … all of them have been here since I’ve been here and have been through the ups and downs.
“The international guys that have come in have really bought into that emotional attachment.”
Now surrounded by internationals – Irish had 383 caps’ worth of talent on the bench against Quins, Hoskins wants to be one himself.
“I want to play international rugby, that has always been my goal and I am English qualified and that is what I am trying to aspire to,” he said. “Being in a side like this, with all the international quality that we have, is only going to push me and the club to higher things.”
Former teammate and 38-cap Wallaby lock, Adam Coleman, is the latest highprofile addition to the Exiles’ squad. On Sunday, Coleman was kept company on the bench by another Wallaby in Nick Phipps, ex-Pumas captain Agustin Creevy, and Ireland and Lions star Sean O’Brien.
“The amount of international experience we have got is pretty nuts. It is motivating to see players of that calibre training to the intensity that they do.
“I played against some of them previously back in Australia and Adam and I made our Western Force debuts together. Apart from the three years when he was back in Oz and I was over here, we’ve pretty much played our whole careers together. You’d much rather have him on your team than against you because there aren’t that many players who can throw their shoulders like him – he hits really hard!
“Then you’ve got someone like Agustin Creevy, who is like one of the cult figures in rugby. Whenever I’ve watched him play, I’ve thought ‘wow, this guy is a serious player’ and now I’m packing down with him every week and he is one of my mates.”
Hoskins has had opportunities to leave the Exiles but never really envisaged his future lay elsewhere. He is happily settled in all aspects of his life.
“I came over here as a 23year-old single bloke and now I’ve got a dog and I am about to get married to my fiancée Amber. I’m all shacked up and loving it.”