Paul O’Connell: ‘I see little difference between a Limerick rugby player and a player from a Dublin private school’

Former Ireland, Munster and Lions captain Paul O’Connell is sitting in the bowels of the Aviva Stadium eating an orange. “Do you mind me eating this?” he asks politely, before he peels the fruit. The orange is deeply on brand for O’Connell. He is an ambassador for Aldi, or as they are known around these parts “the official fresh food sponsor of the IRFU”. The hands that pushed Ireland on to famous victories before suffering a career-ending injury in 2015 make short work of the orange which is peeled and demolished in seconds.

O’Connell, his 6ft 6in frame relaxed in an armchair, has had a busy morning. Outside on the pristine pitch, hundreds of children from 20 primary schools across the country have been taking part in the annual Aldi National Rugby Festival, part of the Play Rugby programme. “The Big Man” has been enjoying himself, the storied pitch divided into four and playing host to action-packed blitzes refereed by community officers from the IRFU. “The groundsman, his name is Majella, he is so protective of the grass on the pitch, very few people get to go on that grass, so it’s amazing for the young people,” O’Connell says. “The Play Rugby programme which Aldi have been running for 10 years is getting a non-contact form of the game into primary schools. The sport isn’t big in primary schools, it’s big in some private secondary schools, but this gets it into primary level.”

The Play Rugby programme is impressive. Nearly 130,000 children are participating around the country and almost half of them, 46 per cent, are girls. “The best player out there is a girl from Ballinasloe,” he says, motioning to the stadium. “She was amazing. She told me she was a soccer player, I’m sure she’s a good soccer player, you should have seen her speed and footwork. I’m sure she scores loads of goals in soccer but I told her she’d score a million tries every weekend … I was telling her, ‘You have to go down to your local rugby club’ and that’s what Play Rugby is about. It’s why the IRFU put a lot of money into it. Getting kids to think ‘hang on a minute, I’m good at this’ and get into the sport.”

With the Six Nations over, O’Connell as Ireland’s forwards coach is preparing the team for the summer tour. How did he think the Six Nations went? “We finished well, we started poorly,” he says. Retired 10 years now, the nine to five job with Ireland keeps the 46-year-old constantly active. In addition to the day job he coaches young rugby players at home in Limerick, lifts weights and plays a bit of Padel – a friend of his owns a place in his home city. The game suits him. “It’s only an hour, golf is four hours.”

Apart from rugby and swimming, which he excelled at when he was younger, golf has been a constant passion. Was he a loss to that sport? Could he have been a Rory McIlroy if he’d followed a different path? “I wish I had been a loss to golf,” he smiles ruefully. “I can’t tell you how hard I tried to be good at golf but I hit a wall.” He was a decent player as a youngster. “I had massive dreams up to the age of 15 but it’s only when you go to the Irish National Boys Tournament that you realise ‘oh my God I am so far behind here’, but I love golf.”

I’m surprised to learn that he never competed in his friend JP McManus’s Pro-Am tournaments in Limerick. McManus is something of a mentor for O’Connell. “He’s been amazing for Limerick when you see what he’s done for so many charities, he’s been incredible for the city and the county.” When McManus set up the International Rugby Experience (IRE) in Limerick, O’Connell was a key figure, serving on the board. He helped persuade some of the biggest names in global rugby, from Jonny Wilkinson to Faf de Klerk, to lend their expertise to an immersive attraction designed to celebrate the sport. The aim was to create something meaningful for the city, something to inspire future generations of rugby players. “It’s a world-class tourist attraction for Limerick, right in the home of Munster rugby, telling the story of a game that has been a force for good all over the world,” he told me three years ago when the IRE first opened.

“It was disappointing,” O’Connell says, when I bring up the venue’s closure after just 19 months. “We wanted to do something for the city, to generate footfall. Something beautiful, it’s such a gorgeous building. Unfortunately, the agreement that was there between the Rugby Experience and the council fell through. It is what it is.” He doesn’t blame poor visitor numbers. “It was performing a little bit below estimates but not much,” he says. “It’s been given to the State now, so there’ll be something there.” Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O’Donovan has announced that the building will be developed into a branch of the National Museum of Ireland hosting a permanent exhibition telling the stories of women in Ireland.

A towering presence in Ireland’s second row, O’Connell captained the country to a Grand Slam and multiple Six Nations titles. He grew up in a rugby house with a rugby mad father but gave it up briefly to concentrate on swimming, returning to rugby at the age of 16. As his sporting career took off, he opted not to finish his computer engineering degree. “It’s a big regret of mine,” he says. “I convinced myself I was too busy with rugby.”

His life still revolves around the sport. Away from the pitch, he and his wife Emily O’Leary are in the parenthood trenches with their three children Paddy (16), Lola (11), and Felix (eight). They holiday in Lahinch every year and he says their house in Limerick reflects his own active upbringing – all three children are sporty. Paddy and Felix play rugby, while Lola’s schedule is even more packed. She played rugby for a while but had to give it up because her other pursuits, including Gaelic football, dancing, horse riding and golf, were taking up too much time. O’Connell says he doesn’t push his children toward any particular path and he’s certainly not looking at his sons thinking they might play for Ireland one day. “Not at all. I wouldn’t want them to do anything unless they enjoy it,” he says. “Paddy enjoys his rugby, I don’t know if he has ambitions to play it at a higher level.” Does he ask him for advice? “I help out coaching his team so I am advising him a little bit anyway.”

O’Connell relishes his parental routines. The lifts to training sessions, matches at weekends and the occasional ice cream on the way home. It’s a continuation of what his own parents did when he was a child. “That was my upbringing, there were matches and training non-stop. I’m enjoying that.”

He worries, as many parents do, about the influence of social media. He watched the recent Louis Theroux documentary on the Manosphere. “It’s something that concerns me,” O’Connell says. “I was watching the documentary and I was saying, these guys are complete idiots … so it’s just something we keep talking to the kids about.”

I ask him if he’s a fan of Irish Times columnist Ross O’Carroll Kelly. “I think I read one of the books,” he laughs. “My son is reading them now.” O’Connell holds no truck with the perception that, in Dublin at least, rugby is an elitist sport. “I coach Ireland, we have a lot of those private school boys playing with us now, and they are the nicest fellas you could ever hope to meet,” he says. “They are gentlemen. Just lovely fellas, unbelievably hard working, they want to look after each other and inspire the next generation. They are great with the fans. I see very little difference between a rugby player from Limerick or Cork or Kerry and a rugby player from a private school in Dublin. Maybe the player from a private school in Dublin is better coached because there are a few more man hours goes into them. But you couldn’t ask for better ambassadors for the country.”

A friend who knows about rugby things told me to ask O’Connell: “Why is Munster rugby so shite at the moment?” Does he think that’s a fair question? He laughs loudly. “It’s a good question. We’ve had a few tough years and tough games but they are not shite for sure … I do think they’ve struggled to get players through. There’s 1.3 million people in the province of Munster, there’s a great rugby community, we just have to figure out how to get the players through. We don’t have the private school system same as they do in Dublin. We’ve got to figure out from our brilliant rugby community how to get them to play for Munster at a high level.” Is he involved in that? “I’m not involved in solving it but I think about it a lot”.

As a former Munster captain, I’m curious about how he feels about the fall out from the team appointing New Zealander Roger Randle as assistant Munster coach. That appointment led to three former players stepping down from the Munster Branch’s Professional Game Committee and has caused disagreement in the Munster rugby community. “I’d rather not talk about that,” he says. (Randle was accused of raping a woman in Durban, South Africa, in 1997 when he was part of the Hurricanes team that were playing a Super Rugby match there. He denied the allegations and the charges were withdrawn.)

A proven leader, O’Connell is no stranger to a motivational talk and has learned a lot about resilience over the years. “So much of the anxiety we experience in life and in sport is future focused, on the big game or what ever is coming down the track. I think the people who are most able to handle it are the ones who are most present. Our players take two breaths during the game a lot, you’ll see them huddle up and do that. It’s their way of reminding themselves to stay in the moment and if you can teach yourself to do that it’s the best high-performance tool there is.”

Our time is nearly up. What does he think about the women’s team? “I think they play great rugby,” he says. “I enjoy watching them. France and England are very strong but Ireland are closing the gap all the time and it’s not necessarily only ever about winning … sports can get a bit dispiriting sometimes, but if you can just think about getting better, it’s really enjoyable. So for them, it’s just about getting better and I think they’re getting better all the time.” And how does he feel after another day coaching the children of Aldi’s Play Rugby programme? “It’s been amazing watching these young kids play. It makes me excited for the future of rugby.”

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