THERE IS SIMPLY not enough that can be said for John Muldoon and the influence he has had on his native province over 15 seasons.
He may often try to convince you otherwise. The grizzly beard, a hard truthful stare and the unmistakable sound of honesty through his words might even make you believe him. But he casts a long shadow as the truth of the matter shines behind him.
Because it’s hard to pin down qualities of a player, a leader, a man who is a walking talking emblem of Connacht Rugby, his humility is a factor that continuously crops up with anyone who has worked with him.
Knowing there were ceremonies to mark his departure this week, he made an effort to step in and divert the spotlight instead on a man like Andrew Browne or their fellow departing title-winners Jake Heenan or JP Cooney.
“I had to go into the marketing team last week and try to pull them back a bit. I’ll have to sit and suffer I think,” he joked in a chat with Galway Bay FM and the Craggy Rugby podcast this week.
“It feels like someone’s going to nail me into a coffin at about half 4 or 5 o’clock Saturday evening. It’s quite hard to take (the acclaim) I don’t feel I deserve any recognition.
“Obviously it comes because I’ve been here so long, but I don’t feel I deserve any more than the likes of Browny or anyone else who’s leaving at the end of the season.”
He’s wrong, and even with 13 years of service to his name, the stalwart second row Browne would agree.
Muldoon is an icon.
There is no need for him to be humble. Because he is always such an engaging speaker, giving well-rounded answers – usually at the expense of brevity – to any question sent his way, the now retired back row often ends up contradicting himself to stick a sock in anything that might be confused with blowing his own trumpet.
Take his longevity; 327 long games for Connacht, three more internationals and a smattering of Ireland ‘A’, Connacht ‘A’ and Barbarians ties for good measure. The past 15 seasons have been a remarkable example of staying power in the most physically punishing position in an increasingly unforgiving sport.
“I’ve never had any speed, so that ruled out muscle injuries straight away,” he jokes in the same interview with Rob Murphy.
He cites a bit of luck too, but the truth is never far from Muldoon’s lips. And the truth is that he worked hard, changing approaches and attitudes to off-field training in tandem with Johnny O’Connor after the current strength and conditioning coach returned from his playing stint with Wasps.
“Since Johnny came back from England, Johnny and myself did a Setanta College course and we learned a lot about body makeup and how to look after yourself.
“What the young lads do now, and what the lads do before training we… it was Johnny who started pushing it seven or eight years ago.”
There will be a Connacht-sized hole in his life next season as he brings that humble nature to a coaching role in Bristol, but the clean break will be good for him.
Becoming engrained in the fabric of the club and the province has its drawbacks. Even John Muldoon could use time off and some headspace now and then. And for those days he coached himelf to point his car on a route that didn’t include College Road, because the sight of the Sportsground gates would inevitably set his train of thought away.
The 35-year-old couldn’t have imagined his efforts to keep a focus on in-game events this week could have resulted in a record 47-10, seven-try victory over the Champions Cup favourites. But after a season in which Connacht too often failed to fire, the sight of their attack clicking to devastating effect on a sun-kissed April day was a fitting tribute to Muldoon’s legacy.
For it’s when he speaks about Connacht rather than himself that Muldoon is able to shrug off that humble cloak, puff his chest out and talk about the force they became, and are capable of becoming again.
“There is a perception out there that we love the wind and rain – we don’t. We haven’t liked the wind and rain for about four years now because we like to move the ball, we like to play with it,” he said on a dark January day in 2015.
The relentlessly expansive gameplan brought by Pat Lam was made possible by the handling skill-set of forwards like Muldoon, previously somewhat under wraps as the Portumna man built a repuation as a dogged, hard-working blindside. On the march to the Pro12 title, Muldoon became a linking playmaker in the western province’s wide channels and his latter years regularly brought his passing stats in excess of the tackle and carry numbers he ran up.
That ability to embrace the new while being fiercely proud of the old values is what makes Muldoon ‘the Ultimate Connacht Man’.
“If you come to Galway, there’s a harshness to it. But there’s a beauty to it,” he said early last season.
“We have our history, it’s a lot like where we’re from and the landscape and the environment we’re in. It’s a tough place, but inside that tough place there’s a beauty to it. Maybe I’m getting sentimental in my old age, but there’s something special about it.”
The sentimental side of Muldoon was strong long before he entered the twilight years of his playing career. A pragmatist would have accepted the numerous offers to up sticks and head for England, France or another Irish province. The poet in Muldoon wanted to be part of the ‘rise up’ from turmoil to trophies.
“I’ve been in a dressing room before when people said, I was quite young at the time now: ‘we’re on TV this weekend, it’s a great opportunity for us’. What do they mean by that? They meant: ‘it’s a great opportunity for teams to look at us, so we’d be picked up by another club!’
“I never thought about it that way. I always thought every day was a great opportunity for me to go out and play for Connacht,” he declared with immense pride in 2016.
And this week as he prepared to don the eagle for a 327th time, his commitment to this one rarely fashionable or profitable, always unlikley, cause was the achievement that caused him to look back with contentment on his career’s work.
“I’m proudest of being a one-club man. Staying here when there were a lot of dark clouds. It would have killed me not to be a part of a team that lifted a trophy.”
For a man of contrasts, however, such love for place and club also meant that being the one to hoist the trophy in Murrayfield made him feel almost abashed, or something completely at odds with the joy and pride that the sight of him under a glittering prize inspired in everyone else.
“I’ve had a lot of bad days in Connacht jerseys, but I genuinely felt bad for some of the people who were missing out,” he told the Craggy Rugby podcast.
“They had put as much into the jersey, more than I had put into the jersey. I felt bad because I was the one front and centre taking all the attention lifting the trophy over my head when people, and very, very good friends of mine, weren’t there.
“I met some of them afterwards, that night, that week and I felt bad for them. I’m privileged to be the person out in front lifting the trophy, but if it was anyone lifting that trophy it wouldn’t have bothered me. I was proud to do it, but I wouldn’t have cared (if it had been someone else).”
Don’t let Muldoon’s humility fool you, it had to be him.
A legend of the west.
