THE SEVEN SHORT years Jordan Conroy has been playing rugby are littered with little landmark moments that still bring a smile to his face.
Like anchor pitons as he made an ascent, looking back he touches on each one as if it were pinnacle in itself, though he quickly reset his sights higher again. And in Hong Kong next weekend, Conroy will be the danger man as Ireland Sevens bid to haul themselves up on the ledge and breath the rarefied air of the World Series.
The 25-year-old excelled in football and athletics before taking up rugby, but the warm glow of acclaim he felt when making waves in March 2015 left a lasting impression.
They call it the 21-second try. But the 20-year-old Tullamore wing took hold of the ball in his own 22 with 16 seconds on the camera’s clock and was touching down with half of Newtownards lying in his wake just 16 seconds later.
It was not the first time he had made a swathe of onlookers sit up, grab their jaws from the floor and take notice. He only pulled on the Tullamore jersey because the AIL 2B club’s captain, Ivor Scully, wound up facing him in a tag tournament. A tap on the shoulder and a gruff demand left the then 18-year-old German-born soccer star in no doubt that he would be welcome at Spollanstown.
“He came up to me after the game and said: ‘I want you at training for the first team… I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer!’
“I went, ‘Okay, hope I don’t get killed!’ I was really small,” Conroy tells The42 as he rests his sprinter’s physique back on a chair a stone’s throw from Lansdowne Road.
The latest high watermark Conroy can point to with pride are the momentous June days in Twickenham when Ireland underlined their Sevens credentials, and status as a nation who ought to be in the World Series, by taking a bronze medal as an invitational side.
Conroy, as is his wont, stole the show with that exceptional acceleration on full display. A hat-trick against England inevitably brought him to a wider-than-usual audience back home. And after he put the finishing touches on a dazzling weekend by burning off the American long-trumpeted as rugby’s fastest man, Carlin Isles found himself debating the semantics of ‘skinning’ with Bernard Brogan.
From Conroy’s perspective, “everyone lost their minds a bit.” He can take pride in making Isles shift uncomfortably in his position as speed king, but he knows too that there will be an occasion when a rival may cut by him with the benefit of an angle or momentum.
“You know there’ll probably be a day he runs around me. It’s about an extra metre, just that day I had the edge. It’s a fast game, so one little mistake, you’re gone. It’s happened to me before, I’ve been beaten. It happens to the best of us.”
That streak of wise humility comes, perhaps, from experience of being proven wrong. It’s something of a recurring theme in Conroy’s progression through sport.
Quite aside from that first encounter with Tullamore RFC or a later row with his mother over whether to choose 15-a-side or Sevens. He resisted when a guidance counsellor at school suggested he was a natural people person and instead attempted to play the taciturn teen.
In any field, you will often come across people whose rise to the top is laced with negative motivating factors, a list of bloody-minded ‘I-sure-showed-thems’ — secondary level teachers tend to find themselves the most frequent belated target.
Conroy carries no such chip on the shoulder, indeed he continually touches on times when he was the one proven wrong and the sage advice was utterly sound in the long-run.
“It’s true,” he says after recounting how he balked at his guidance counsellor.
“I never realised it then, but I do like being around a lot of people. I never really shut up talking.”
It was that trait that led him away from Tullamore Harriers and athletics training that was becoming increasingly isolated.
He thrives in a group and set his mind on team sports, eventually bringing him a handful of League of Ireland outings with Athlone Town and, now, at the heart of a veritable band of sisters and brothers in the IRFU Sevens setup.
TRY @IrishRugby!
— eir Sport (@eirSport) July 2, 2017
Sensational finish from Jordan Conroy. Ireland 5-5 Spain at half-time. Second half live on eir Sport 1! #Clermont7s #IreM7s pic.twitter.com/0bfsTtiEow
He looks back to more recent events and sees the trait shine through when Ireland have been celebrating wins at tournaments in far-flung places across the globe. With multiple matches and nations involved in each day’s play, such events naturally allow an enormous mix of fans to converge in one place. This Ireland side have shown a knack of bringing neutrals to their side and Conroy admits that he revels in celebrating with strangers and submitting for selfies.
That mindset, that innate ability to connect with people will also be displayed outside of rugby. He opted to study Social Care in Athlone IT and along with Sevens team-mates he is putting building blocks in place for an initiative called Going for Gold, which will see him coach and mentor in community schemes after this year’s Hong Kong 7s is in the books.
“I first studied German and tourism – because of the language – and just didn’t like it,” he says before nodding at the impact of his guidance counsellor.
After having work experience in a youth centre and a disability centre, being around people – I could see where she was coming from.
“It feels right. It’s something I want to do in the future, because it’s exciting, it’s something new every day. So after the rugby when I’m too battered and beat up (to play) I want to be a social care worker, I want to work with the youth.
“It’s a good job (to take up post-rugby) because at this age I don’t have too much life experience, but when I’m 30, with that bit of life experience it could be good. Talk about my life, try to teach others.”
Conroy brings a rare check to his stride. There are many moments and occasions he enjoys projecting forward and visualising, but he still has much to achieve in rugby. No point dwelling on his 30s any time soon.
“I won’t look that far ahead. Sure I never thought I’d be here three or four years ago.”
A word then for the woman who made sure Conroy kept on track to this point. It is Mother’s Day after all.
“She still gives out to me in German,” he laughs, and during a lively 40 minute chat with The42 it’s far from the only reference to his mother, Jenny, who returned to her native Tullamore when Jordan was 10 and is credited as the “driving force” in his sporting exploits.
“She’s been there since day one,” he says half-joking, but it’s by far the most succinct way of putting it.
She was the first person to really say, ‘I think you should do the Sevens’. I was very naive and said, ‘no I want to do the 15s’. We had this big argument over whether to go for Sevens trials or play the semi-final of a cup with Tullamore. I was like, ‘no the team needs me…’
“I ended up playing in the semi-final and losing. She was so mad. But then she sent a bunch of emails asking could I go for trials again.
“Afterwards, after I scored the 21-second try, I got an email: ‘we’d like to invite you…’”
The rest is history, as they say, but as usual Conroy is looking forward. Jenny will make the long trek to watch her son in action next weekend. Having previously ventured no further than Exeter to see him in action, the Buccaneers speedster is intent on grabbing something to celebrate alongside the woman who made it possible.
“It would be nice to lift the cup with her in the crowd, give back to her for all the years she’s put into me. It would be really nice to pay her back, because it’s just been her, by herself, looking after me.
“She was really proud of me last year, I just want to keep her being proud of me. She’s done a lot for me.
“It’s one way to give back anyway… because we don’t see eye-to-eye half the time,” he says swapping gravity for levity and back again
“But it’s nice for her to come over and, hopefully, share a moment. She’s a crazy woman, a bit like me. This is why I’m crazy. Glad to have her, she’s a great woman.”
The attention, acclaim and responsibility that comes stitched into an Ireland jersey is something Conroy embraces with equal measure. Anyone who is among his 6,000 Instagram followers will be aware of his regular dance-laden stories, which take the feel of his own sketch show, may also have spotted his three young cousins – the first in line to take example from him.
Not every sportsman is prepared to act as a role model, but Conroy doesn’t shirk when the duty is thrust his way.
“They’re like my three little brothers. They’re always asking about my rugby. It’s kinda hard being up here (in Dublin) at the moment, because they’re always asking for me at the weekends, but I can’t always go down.
“It’s funny, so many people come to me in my messages and ask me (for advice) and I’m taken aback by it. I’m 25, I can’t believe they’re looking up to me.
“As time has passes, people have told me: ‘people do look up to you.’ And it’s something that comes as part of the sport. You just have to deal with it, be you, be the best you can.
“It started with the three boys, setting a good example for them and trying to be there as much as I can for them — It’s them, their mother and my auntie. They’re really proud of me and they’d be talking about me in school — ‘my cousin was on TV!’
“It feels good to be that kind of person for them. The little family I have, I try to make the most of them. I love them three little boys. They’re mad.”
Conroy’s own sporting heroes growing up speak to his initial love for athletics and football. He got off the track before Usain Bolt became a household name, so he remembers idolising Asafa Powell. His true love was soccer though, and the long, smooth stride of Thierry Henry spoke to him louder than any other athlete.
Conroy’s running style is different, of course, it’s nowhere near as languid and there is much more power behind every step. It is a weapon which has helped to propel Ireland along this rapid upward trajectory despite the late uptake of Sevens rugby.
The rise doesn’t feel quite so quick for the players involved, long-haul flights bring an ever decreasing level of craic and the times they have fallen short of their goals are not easily forgotten.
Yet Sevens gives every opportunity for amends to be made. So Ireland and their Tullamore flyer flew out to Hong Kong yesterday ahead of a pivotal weekend for the short form of the game in this country.
They go with the confidence of December’s Invitational Trophy in in Dubai – “after three years of losing semi-finals, finally being able to stand on the podium,” Conroy says with a disbelieving shake of his head.
An outright win in the qualifying tournament would see Ireland progress to the top tier of Sevens rugby by taking a place in the World Series.
Last year’s heartbreaking semi-final loss to Japan in this tournament is still not far from the minds, but after their exploits at London 7s, the World Cup and victory in the invitational tournament in Dubai, Ireland are no longer the upstarts.
There will be fierce competition from the likes of Tonga, Zimbabwe (who played on the 2019 series) and Germany (beaten finalists at this event for the last two years), but it’s Ireland who are there to be shot at.
“It’s only fair after the year we’ve had, but we just want to take it game by game,” says the Tullamore man with a sudden game face that’s at odds with the easy affable chatter he let flow when the subject was anything other than the tournament ahead. He is dead set on scaling another new height when he enters pool action alongside Jamaica, Uruguay and Russia on Friday.
“This year we feel we’re more ready for it. We know what we have to do. Game by game, we’re not going to blow it out of proportion, we’re just here to do a job and we can celebrate afterwards.”
We’ve been around the block, we’ve played all the big teams. We know the setup in Hong Kong. It’s all about experience and I think that experience has done us good. and I think this time round is going to be it, we’re going to do the job out there.”
“Ireland’s been on the map, but making them a permanent team (in the World Series) and a force to be reckoned with…
“It’s been a really good year and hopefully Hong Kong will make next year another highlight for us to look back on.”
