MUCH HAS BEEN made of the physical profile of Ireland’s squad over the last 12 months, a period in which Andy Farrell’s side has had its chair pulled away from Test rugby’s top table.
We don’t produce the same calibre of athlete as the South Africans or the French, or so goes the consensus. Our young players lack the raw dynamism of the islanders who can turn a tidy team into a more devastating force, as they have with New Zealand especially for over two decades.
Well, try telling that to the people of Cobh.
Beamed onto the tower at Belvelly Castle since Farrell announced his matchday 23 to face Italy is an 80-foot projection of Edwin Edogbo pointing towards the Ireland crest on his jersey, beneath which reads the caption: “Congratulations and good luck, from everyone on The Great Island.”
As one man in the area joked to this writer, “It’s just a pity they couldn’t get one life-sized.”
A projection of Edwin Edogbo at Belvelly Castle, Cobh, Co. Cork.
Cobh has always bred fighters — literally so in the case of ‘The Gorgeous Gael’ Jack Doyle a century ago, and world-rated light-middleweight Callum Walsh in the present day — but not since Sonia O’Sullivan dug deep at the Sydney Olympics has the harbour town been so enraptured by one of its own sporting stars.
Striking this week is that more people from Cobh seem to be heading to Dublin for the Italy game than aren’t. Still, The Paddocks Bar at Cobh Pirates RFC, which will mark Edogbo’s debut this afternoon, is expected to be absolutely jammers.
“D’you know what? One of the biggest concerns I have now is just that I don’t forget to invite somebody,” says Cobh Pirates’ public relations officer, Richie McGrath. “We want to make sure that everyone who has had a role in Edwin’s pathway is invited and can attend.
“As a matter of fact, we extended an invitation up to Coláiste Mhuire, where Edwin and his brother Seán went to school, to see if any of the staff would like to attend. And it’s escalated so much that Killian Barry, who would be the sports teacher up there and looks after the rugby, nearly had to start narrowing it down because I think half the school wanted to go!
“That’s one of the standout factors about Edwin,” McGrath adds. “The guy was so likeable, even as a young child and all the way up along, that everyone has great time for him.
“That remains the case to this day.
He was up in the club, I think it was two weeks ago, training in the gym early on a Saturday morning. I literally just bumped into him. And it’s always so laid-back and casual. He’ll stop for a chat with anybody.
Edogbo, 23, is particularly engaging with kids around the club. He and his younger brother, Munster teammate and former Ireland U20 Seán, lend plenty of their spare time to the club’s underage sides, contributing to training sessions and attending games when they’re not on duty with their province.
Edwin Edogbo (L) and recent Munster senior debutant, Seán Edogbo. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
The irony is that Seán, 21, had a profound influence on his older brother becoming a rugby player at all. Just over a decade ago, Edwin was literally on his way to tennis training when his friends convinced him to head to Pirates instead. He watched Seán play in a minis game and, given his towering height for his age, he wasn’t long being sussed out on the sideline as to whether he might like to try the game himself.
“I mean, it’s just one of those kind of serendipitous moments for the club,” says Kevin O’Keeffe, Edogbo’s first rugby coach, who looked after him at U13s.
“He simply walked through the gate. He knew nothing at all about rugby. He didn’t even have a pair of boots. He got a pair eventually but they didn’t last long (due to Edogbo’s growth) — I actually had to give him my boots,” O’Keeffe laughs.
“I think we had one training session and the following week, we played a match. He hadn’t a clue. We had him playing in the centres and our tactic was clear: ‘Give it to the big fella and let him see how far he can run!’ But within a few weeks, we got him into the forwards where our forwards coach, Ray Duignam, took Edwin under his wing.
“He was a sponge for information. He caught on to it very quickly.
It was clear that he was going to be a good player — but Jesus, not as good as he turned out to be!
O’Keeffe, as well as several of Edogbo’s teachers at Coláiste Mhuire, recall an extremely shy, well-mannered youngfella: “the best-behaved kid on the bus”.
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A couple of them noted that younger brother Seán, equally a breeze to supervise in his younger years, would be the more naturally extroverted of the siblings.
Virtually everybody in Cobh with whom you might speak about the Edogbo brothers, meanwhile, will wax lyrical about their parents, who immigrated to Ireland from Nigeria before starting their family.
Pillars of their adopted community, Patience and Augustine instilled in their sons a ferocious work rate: as Pirates PRO Richie McGrath notes, very few athletes would have possessed the resolve to not only recover from Edwin’s three separate Achilles tendon injuries, but to return an even more formidable force.
The Edogbos’ humility, though, has always preceded them. Kevin O’Keeffe recalls Pirates coaches from U13s onwards trying to quietly impress upon Edwin just how good he was capable of becoming: they saw Munster potential in him long before he was even a Munster fan.
Edwin Edgobo at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
At Pirates’ end-of-season awards in 2015 — Clubperson of the Year, Player of the Year, and Most Improved Player — Edwin Edogbo duly received the latter gong: he had, after all, improved from not playing rugby at all to becoming one of the club’s most exciting talents.
Edogbo progressed onto Richie Daly’s U14s, who had already nicked him for a few games the previous year on account of his physical prowess, and eventually onto U16 where former Ireland Youths out-half Colm MacCoitir and Bernard Kiely ramped up his development over the next few years.
“That’s really when he started to blossom, you know?” says O’Keeffe.
“He started to come out of his shell, y’know, in the sense of, he started to get a bit of recognition.”
Including with his province, who drafted Edogbo into their development pathway from U16s where he received further, specialised coaching. He earned a cap with Ireland U18s Clubs in 2019 and was also included in a Schools squad that year, but they didn’t play a game.
Edogbo’s Cobh Pirates U18s team reached a Munster final in 2020 which was ultimately cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There still hangs a pang of regret that such a generational side was unable to fulfil what felt like destiny, but there’s equally an air of awe when Edogbo’s semi-final effort against Nenagh Ormond is broached.
“He was a star that day,” O’Keeffe says. “Nenagh were a little bit better than us at certain points and he got us out of loads of trouble. And then near their line — like he does with Munster now, really — he was devastating.
“You could kind of see it that day. The elite Munster training was starting to come out of him. He was classy that day.”
U13 Edwin Edogbo pictured with coach Kevin O'Keeffe and current Cobh Pirates chairperson Paul Kenny in 2015.
After Andy Farrell named his squad to face Italy internally at the start of this week, Edogbo rang his mother, Patience, who was under pressure at work and demanded to know in as few words as possible what the story was. She shrieked down the phone when her son gave her the good news.
Indeed, were you walking along the water’s edge in Passage West or Monkstown on Thursday at 2pm, you might have heard a similar crescendo from The Great Island across the way.
It was exactly 78 years ago today when the first man from Cobh represented Ireland in rugby. John Christopher Daly played in the front row of the Ireland team that won the country’s first Grand Slam in 1948, and ‘JC’ made his debut in a Five Nations second-round victory over England.
Daly will surely be toasted in The Paddocks Bar at some stage today, when Edwin Edogbo becomes the first Cobh Pirates player to pull on the green jersey at Test level.
“No better showcase of what grassroots rugby can produce when supported by strong club values, committed volunteers and a genuine sense of community,” says Richie McGrath.
“The Edogbos have never lost sight of where they came from and they ensure that the connection between Pirates, Munster and now Ireland is a living one. What better inspiration for every young boy and girl in Pirates?
“Hopefully, we’ll have someone else wearing a green shirt in the not-too-distant future. But, like, let’s let’s just enjoy Edwin’s moment for now and not get carried away!”
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'It was clear he was going to be a good player - but Jesus, not as good as he turned out to be!'
MUCH HAS BEEN made of the physical profile of Ireland’s squad over the last 12 months, a period in which Andy Farrell’s side has had its chair pulled away from Test rugby’s top table.
We don’t produce the same calibre of athlete as the South Africans or the French, or so goes the consensus. Our young players lack the raw dynamism of the islanders who can turn a tidy team into a more devastating force, as they have with New Zealand especially for over two decades.
Well, try telling that to the people of Cobh.
Beamed onto the tower at Belvelly Castle since Farrell announced his matchday 23 to face Italy is an 80-foot projection of Edwin Edogbo pointing towards the Ireland crest on his jersey, beneath which reads the caption: “Congratulations and good luck, from everyone on The Great Island.”
As one man in the area joked to this writer, “It’s just a pity they couldn’t get one life-sized.”
Cobh has always bred fighters — literally so in the case of ‘The Gorgeous Gael’ Jack Doyle a century ago, and world-rated light-middleweight Callum Walsh in the present day — but not since Sonia O’Sullivan dug deep at the Sydney Olympics has the harbour town been so enraptured by one of its own sporting stars.
Striking this week is that more people from Cobh seem to be heading to Dublin for the Italy game than aren’t. Still, The Paddocks Bar at Cobh Pirates RFC, which will mark Edogbo’s debut this afternoon, is expected to be absolutely jammers.
“D’you know what? One of the biggest concerns I have now is just that I don’t forget to invite somebody,” says Cobh Pirates’ public relations officer, Richie McGrath. “We want to make sure that everyone who has had a role in Edwin’s pathway is invited and can attend.
“As a matter of fact, we extended an invitation up to Coláiste Mhuire, where Edwin and his brother Seán went to school, to see if any of the staff would like to attend. And it’s escalated so much that Killian Barry, who would be the sports teacher up there and looks after the rugby, nearly had to start narrowing it down because I think half the school wanted to go!
“That’s one of the standout factors about Edwin,” McGrath adds. “The guy was so likeable, even as a young child and all the way up along, that everyone has great time for him.
“That remains the case to this day.
Edogbo, 23, is particularly engaging with kids around the club. He and his younger brother, Munster teammate and former Ireland U20 Seán, lend plenty of their spare time to the club’s underage sides, contributing to training sessions and attending games when they’re not on duty with their province.
The irony is that Seán, 21, had a profound influence on his older brother becoming a rugby player at all. Just over a decade ago, Edwin was literally on his way to tennis training when his friends convinced him to head to Pirates instead. He watched Seán play in a minis game and, given his towering height for his age, he wasn’t long being sussed out on the sideline as to whether he might like to try the game himself.
“I mean, it’s just one of those kind of serendipitous moments for the club,” says Kevin O’Keeffe, Edogbo’s first rugby coach, who looked after him at U13s.
“He simply walked through the gate. He knew nothing at all about rugby. He didn’t even have a pair of boots. He got a pair eventually but they didn’t last long (due to Edogbo’s growth) — I actually had to give him my boots,” O’Keeffe laughs.
“I think we had one training session and the following week, we played a match. He hadn’t a clue. We had him playing in the centres and our tactic was clear: ‘Give it to the big fella and let him see how far he can run!’ But within a few weeks, we got him into the forwards where our forwards coach, Ray Duignam, took Edwin under his wing.
“He was a sponge for information. He caught on to it very quickly.
O’Keeffe, as well as several of Edogbo’s teachers at Coláiste Mhuire, recall an extremely shy, well-mannered youngfella: “the best-behaved kid on the bus”.
A couple of them noted that younger brother Seán, equally a breeze to supervise in his younger years, would be the more naturally extroverted of the siblings.
Virtually everybody in Cobh with whom you might speak about the Edogbo brothers, meanwhile, will wax lyrical about their parents, who immigrated to Ireland from Nigeria before starting their family.
Pillars of their adopted community, Patience and Augustine instilled in their sons a ferocious work rate: as Pirates PRO Richie McGrath notes, very few athletes would have possessed the resolve to not only recover from Edwin’s three separate Achilles tendon injuries, but to return an even more formidable force.
The Edogbos’ humility, though, has always preceded them. Kevin O’Keeffe recalls Pirates coaches from U13s onwards trying to quietly impress upon Edwin just how good he was capable of becoming: they saw Munster potential in him long before he was even a Munster fan.
At Pirates’ end-of-season awards in 2015 — Clubperson of the Year, Player of the Year, and Most Improved Player — Edwin Edogbo duly received the latter gong: he had, after all, improved from not playing rugby at all to becoming one of the club’s most exciting talents.
Edogbo progressed onto Richie Daly’s U14s, who had already nicked him for a few games the previous year on account of his physical prowess, and eventually onto U16 where former Ireland Youths out-half Colm MacCoitir and Bernard Kiely ramped up his development over the next few years.
“That’s really when he started to blossom, you know?” says O’Keeffe.
“He started to come out of his shell, y’know, in the sense of, he started to get a bit of recognition.”
Including with his province, who drafted Edogbo into their development pathway from U16s where he received further, specialised coaching. He earned a cap with Ireland U18s Clubs in 2019 and was also included in a Schools squad that year, but they didn’t play a game.
Edogbo’s Cobh Pirates U18s team reached a Munster final in 2020 which was ultimately cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There still hangs a pang of regret that such a generational side was unable to fulfil what felt like destiny, but there’s equally an air of awe when Edogbo’s semi-final effort against Nenagh Ormond is broached.
“He was a star that day,” O’Keeffe says. “Nenagh were a little bit better than us at certain points and he got us out of loads of trouble. And then near their line — like he does with Munster now, really — he was devastating.
“You could kind of see it that day. The elite Munster training was starting to come out of him. He was classy that day.”
After Andy Farrell named his squad to face Italy internally at the start of this week, Edogbo rang his mother, Patience, who was under pressure at work and demanded to know in as few words as possible what the story was. She shrieked down the phone when her son gave her the good news.
Indeed, were you walking along the water’s edge in Passage West or Monkstown on Thursday at 2pm, you might have heard a similar crescendo from The Great Island across the way.
It was exactly 78 years ago today when the first man from Cobh represented Ireland in rugby. John Christopher Daly played in the front row of the Ireland team that won the country’s first Grand Slam in 1948, and ‘JC’ made his debut in a Five Nations second-round victory over England.
Daly will surely be toasted in The Paddocks Bar at some stage today, when Edwin Edogbo becomes the first Cobh Pirates player to pull on the green jersey at Test level.
“No better showcase of what grassroots rugby can produce when supported by strong club values, committed volunteers and a genuine sense of community,” says Richie McGrath.
“The Edogbos have never lost sight of where they came from and they ensure that the connection between Pirates, Munster and now Ireland is a living one. What better inspiration for every young boy and girl in Pirates?
“Hopefully, we’ll have someone else wearing a green shirt in the not-too-distant future. But, like, let’s let’s just enjoy Edwin’s moment for now and not get carried away!”
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