IT’S NEARLY THREE years since Alex Wootton started for Munster against Connacht in an inter-provincial derby in Galway, helping the southern province to a 31-24 win.
The likes of Jack Carty, Dave Heffernan, and Finlay Bealham were Wootton’s opponents that day but now they’re his Connacht team-mates.
Things had been going well for Wootton in Munster before that day in January 2019. He had enjoyed a superb 2017/18 season, starting 19 games including the Champions Cup semi-final against Racing.
He looked like a key man on the wing and the following season had started well enough but things slowed up all of a sudden in 2019 as injury niggles struck and opportunities dried up for Wootton in Munster. After the aforementioned inter-pro derby, he only played for Munster three more times.
The scarcity of game time led to Wootton joining Connacht last year, initially on loan before making the move permanent ahead of the start of the current season.
As he now gets set to face his former province for the fourth time since his switch, Wootton reflects honestly on how his eight-year spell with Munster ended, having initially moved from his native England to join the province’s academy in 2013.
“It’s tough,” says Wootton of those days when he wasn’t getting picked. “It’s tough because… I was actually speaking to a friend the other day who owns a coffee shop and I was saying to him, ‘If your job was solely to be a barista and pour coffees and you broke your hand and couldn’t make any coffees, well you can’t do your job.’
“That’s kinda how it is through injury and whatever, when you’re not getting selected you unfortunately have this negative mindset, or it can definitely creep in, a negative mindset of ‘I’m here, trying my best, and it’s just not happening for whatever reason.’
“That just accumulates especially with week after week of not getting selected but looking back, mentally it definitely makes you more resilient. That’s for sure.”
There’s no doubting that Wootton is in an altogether more positive headspace now. His first season with Connacht was a roaring success as he scored 11 tries and thrived under head coach Andy Friend.
A calf issue during pre-season last summer meant a slow start to the current campaign but Wootton is very happy to be a Connacht man, having moved permanently from Limerick to Galway.
“It was a fairly easy decision, to be honest,” says Wootton of joining Connacht. “It was having a conversation with the coaches up here and having the opportunity to play more rugby really.
“I was away from family and friends for eight years but that last part of the eight years, I wasn’t playing much rugby. If I’m away from family and I’ve moved over to a country to play rugby and I’m not playing rugby, well then I’m losing out really.
“I had an opportunity to come up here and potentially play more rugby, so it was an easy decision. I put my best foot forward last season and it was pretty good, I’m still trying to find my feet this season but all going well, putting the effort in, it will happen again.
“Looking back, it has been the right thing but it was always going to be good because I had the right intentions.”
Happy where he is, Wootton feels no need to try and prove a point when he plays against Munster these days.
“I can only speak for myself, I don’t know about the other lads who came up here but that doesn’t cross my mind, to be honest.
“The only thing I think about when I play Munster is just to not be emotional because those things can come into play and I’m quite a factual person – I know what I need to do when I go onto the field. Therefore, if I know what I need to do and when emotion comes into play, that can take you off task.
“So from my point of view, that’s how I deal with rugby in general really. I try to stay away from the emotional side.
“There’s no trying to prove a point because I know what I’m capable of and I’m sure Munster fans know as well from the years I’ve been down there. It’s a different set of circumstances why I ended up here.”
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Gavan Casey and Murray Kinsella take a break from eating and drinking to chat about some interesting contract news in Irish rugby.
