Hugo Keenan is on his way to be first-choice Lions full-back says man he replaced
Exclusive: "Hugo is a very good athlete, he might not look like the biggest strongest guy but he ticks all the boxes of the athletic profile that you want in the no15."
Hugo Keenan will most likely be the Lions first-choice full-back this summer, cementing his place as one of the all-time Irish rugby greats.
But notes Rob Kearney, the man he succeeded on both the Leinster and Ireland teams, the player's route to the top is different.
Keenan's emergence has come via Sevens, previously considered a cul-de-sac by those in the long-form code.
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But with the rules of the fifteen-a-side changing year-on-year the small-sided game is becoming more relevant and easier to step out of.
"When you play in the back-three you have to be fast," notes Kearney of top level full-backs and wingers.
"It comes with the territory of the position and you have to be able to move quickly so your acceleration is important too.
"Hugo is a very good athlete, he might not look like the biggest strongest guy but he is strong in contact, he is quick, he is very fit, he ticks all the boxes of the athletic profile that you want in the no15."
Keenan's being siphoned off to Sevens was a compliment to Kearney at the time - neither Leo Cullen nor Joe Schmidt were making plans to replace him at Leinster and Ireland respectively.
But post-2019 when Andy Farrell decided it was time for a change, he removed Keenan from the short-game circuit, put him in the Ireland team which, in turn, ramped up the pressure on Cullen to do the same at Leinster.
Continues Kearney: "When I was coming up towards the end of my career Hugo was there, he was in the squads but it wasn't really until he started to get his opportunities on the big stage for Leinster that I started to realise this guy must really have something.
"And then if you remember he got capped for Ireland and he just went from strength to strength every week."
Regular fifteen-a-side rugby at that point seemed to improve Keenan's game almost week by week.
"The things that make him a very good player are he is very strong and that is very important now but it is going to become even more important in the game with the new laws.
"He is a superb defender, his one-on-one tackling is excellent as from his Sevens background, and I think his overall fitness and workrate is second to none too.
"This means he is able to keep up with the play an awful lot, he is there as a support runner, he is working hard from one side to the other to create that extra man in attack and he runs some clever lines too.
"They are lines which sit down opposition defences and if he is in a hole he can pierce through them.
"Certainly his rise, not going to say meteoric rise, but he is a guy who has flourished in the international arena for his first twenty/thirty caps."
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