Robert Baloucoune savouring the moment after taking the long route to rugby’s top table

Finally. At 28, the “Rising Star” of the Six Nations has arrived on the international stage and better late than never. Robert Baloucoune has always been a rare talent and his late flowering has given this Irish team a genuine and unique point of difference.

It’s his sheer X-factor – be it his acceleration, change of direction, ability to beat an opponent or finishing. Alas, the flip side of being blessed with fast-twitch fibres is being cursed with repeated and recurring hamstring and calf problems.

“Some dark enough times,” he admits, not least being restricted to two games last season, during which he wondered whether Ulster would even renew his contract.

But he used his time on the sidelines to improve his skills. Baloucoune was a late starter from not-especially-fertile beginnings. Even with his innate speed and finishing, he could vanish from games for spells as he had never roamed infield off his wing in his underage days. Not any more. Naturally good in the air, he enjoys tackling and now he has the skills and confidence across his game to become the kind of winger Andy Farrell wants in his team.

This is also a credit to the coaching staff at both Ulster and Ireland, as well as the physios and strength-and-conditioning coaches, of whom he says with a wry smile, “there are literally too many to mention”.

One of the great joys for Baloucoune is that all of this is a repayment to his mother Shirley, who largely reared her only child alone. Baloucoune was only six when his father Martial passed away suddenly at the age of 36.

They were living in London at the time before moving to Fermanagh when Baloucoune was 11. One of the ironies in his mum being at Twickenham for this season’s Six Nations victory against England is that “we never even watched rugby when we lived in London”. Shirley attended that match with an old pal from her days teaching in London.

She was at all four of his Six Nations games this season. “The way she enjoys it so much puts a smile on my face as well. I owe her a lot so I am trying to give her as much back as I can.”

His career has, he admits, been a journey. “But I’m a big believer that everything happens for a reason and I think that’s why I’m here today.”

Baloucoune’s dad hailed from Senegal and his mum is from Fermanagh. They had both moved to London, where they met, fell in love, married and had one child, Robert, who was born in August 1997. Baloucoune was reared in Tottenham and attended St Paul’s All Hallows C of E primary school, adjacent to the old White Hart Lane soccer stadium.

“It was literally just behind it, so if there was a game on, you’d hear them going mad. But I am a Gooner. When I say I’m from Tottenham originally, people say, ‘How come you support Arsenal?’. But definitely the right choice I think.”

In supporting Arsenal he was copying his dad, who was a good footballer. “All I know is he was offered trials, I think it might have been for a Ligue 1 team in France.”

Losing his father at the age of six was a shock. “I think that’s why my mum and I are so close as well. When you’re that age, you don’t really realise the impact of it. It made me and my mum grow closer, and too close at times as we fall out sometimes.

“I’m grateful for everything she’s done in rearing me. I’d say it wasn’t easy as I could be a handful when I was younger. Not in terms of misbehaving, more just getting me out of bed to go to school.”

Baloucoune was so laidback, apparently, he could lie out on a clothes line. “Yeah, I used to be really bad,” he says, laughing. “I’m not as bad now. I’ve had to be forced out of it.”

His mum then sent him to St Thomas More Catholic School. “Not a great school to be honest, but it was good for sports. I did athletics and played football as well.”

After his mum moved them back to her family home in Fermanagh, he went to Portora Royal School, now Enniskillen Royal Grammar School, which was a culture shock.

“I went from a school that had all sorts of different cultures to one where there were two black guys in our school. But I never had any issues or any problems. It was an all-boys school, so you play football, you play rugby and you make friends instantly.”

He played soccer with Enniskillen Rangers and was a striker or right-winger. Baloucoune also played Gaelic football with Coa O’Dwyers. He took to rugby gradually.

“I played maybe one game in second year and two games in third year, but in the medallion (under-15) year, you couldn’t really do both, and most of my mates played rugby so I thought I’d can the football. That was probably the first full season of me actually trying to play rugby.”

He’s met one of his old Portora mates this week, Conor Keys, who travelled to Sydney from Melbourne, and will meet another, Ashley Cathcart, who lives in Auckland, ahead of the All Blacks match.

Baloucoune’s Portora senior team reached the final of the Bowl Cup, but when he repeated his A levels he was over-age and his mum and friends encouraged him to play for Enniskillen RFC. The team reached the Ulster Towns Cup final.

“We got better as the season went along. I actually think it played a big part in my development. You’re playing big men. It was a different game. I had to front up. I was pretty scrawny back in those days. And then I got a call from James Topping about coming in for a week with Ulster.

“We had a game at the end. I went from playing against men who were heavy to playing against boys who were 19 or 20, so I felt pretty good. It played a big part physically and mentally. I could make an impact on both sides of the ball because of that year with Enniskillen.”

Keys’s three brothers were all on this season’s Enniskillen team – coached by their father Alastair with Baloucoune helping the backs – which qualified for the AIL for the first time. So too did their women’s team in a unique club double.

Another sliding-doors moment was Topping and Kieran Campbell persuading Baloucoune to take a punt with the Ireland Sevens and Ulster academy.

“I was meant to be going to uni the next week in London or Nottingham. I had accommodation sorted as well. I do think about that fairly regularly. I was still pretty raw back then. I’m just grateful for everything. I’ve progressed and built a bit more belief every time I’ve gone up levels.”

Farrell first called Baloucoune into the Ireland squad as a development player for the 2020 Six Nations, when 22 and on an Ulster development contract.

After a try-scoring Ireland debut against the USA in June 2021, he played against Argentina the following November. He then earned another two caps in November 2022 before falling out of favour and, largely due to injuries, out of sight, until this year’s Six Nations.

Whereupon he was one of the catalysts in Ireland’s upturn, scoring in three of four successive wins. He then recovered from an elbow injury to score a try as Ulster’s best player in their Challenge Cup final defeat to Montpellier. Baloucoune credits Richie Murphy and Mark Sexton for making him a more complete winger. In Farrell, he also has a head coach who has empowered the player to back himself.

This is actually his first trip to Australia, to be followed by one to New Zealand. These are, touch wood, the long-overdue good days. Living the dream. Finally.

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