Oct 17,2024
There's no easy way into the Leinster line-up but James Culhane is ready to battle it out in one of the toughest areas of them all.
The Enniskerry native turns 22 next week and, with eight Leinster appearances already to his name, is aiming to make up ground on a star-studded back row at the province.
Culhane was one of Ireland's standouts in the Under-20s Grand Slam in 2022, earning man of the match nods against Wales and Italy, and being named player of the championship.
Those performances led to a call-up for the 2022 Emerging Ireland tour, where he featured twice, an achievement made even more impressive given the fact that he spent four weeks in hospital with a kidney issue after the Six Nations success.
"It was really random, my kidneys went into like acute failure," he said at the time.
Now, he’s just back from the most recent development trip to the Rainbow Nation where he played twice in the three-game tour and was captain in last weekend's win over the Cheetahs.
The UCD engineering student (below) made a brief appearance in Leinster’s opening URC win over Edinburgh but suffered a head injury soon after coming on.
He’s set to play against Connacht this weekend as Leo Cullen’s side aim to make it five from five following last Saturday’s Croke Park victory over Munster.
Primarily an 8, the competition among Leinster’s loose forwards is fierce: Ireland skipper Caelan Doris, former world player of the year Josh van der Flier, Lions three-Test starter Jack Conan, Ireland internationals Ryan Baird and Will Connors, the in-form Max Deegan won’t give up anything easy.
Scott Penny, who has captained Leinster on numerous occasions, and Alex Soroka, impressive on the Emerging Ireland tour, will want their shots, too.
"You have plenty of Irish internationals to learn from. The likes of Caelan and Josh would be great people to pick off snippets of their game.
"The first thing is I’d love to be involved in European games this year, and staying healthy.
"I had a good run of games at the start of the last year but unfortunately then got a pretty bad hamstring injury which kinda kept me out for the rest of the season.
"Staying healthy and hopefully get a few of those games [in Europe is the aim]."
Culhane’s sojourn to South Africa saw him miss three rounds of the URC but he places huge value on getting game time against the Airlink Pumas and the Cheetahs, matches he describes as "physically, it was probably a step up at times" from his previous experience.
And exposure to Ireland forwards coach Paul O’Connell (below), as in 2022, is always time well spent.
"I’ve a good relationship with Paul O’Connell, he has an answer for everything, in fairness to him," said Culhane, who moved to the senior ranks at Leinster ahead of the current season.
"He’s just a great man to learn from in general.
"He helped me a lot with my breakdown and ball-carrying, just giving me tips and on my game as a whole, just giving me advice and how to break into teams, especially, it’s such a competitive environment at Leinster as well."
Culhane, who represented Dublin in soccer’s Kennedy Cup for two years, now aims to show Cullen and Jacques Nienaber, Leinster senior coach, what he’s learned, staring with a trip to Galway on Saturday.
"They’ve got a lot of new talent and, as always, are a physical side," the forward, who stands 6ft 4in, and weighs over 17st, said of Pete Wilkins’ team, who have won two and lost two so far, scoring 17 tries in the process.
"They’ve played a good brand of rugby over the last few weeks.
"They are always highly motivated for this fixture, especially in the Sportsground, with a few ex-Leinster players there as well. We are really looking forward to this challenge.
"As a back row, [the job description] is always the same, you’re really trying to win collisions and get gain line for the team.
"If you can do that better than the opposition back row that’s always the goal."
