FORMER IRELAND RUGBY star Seán O’Brien has been making a notable impact for his local GAA side The Fighting Cocks in Carlow this year.
Considered one of the best forwards of his generation, O’Brien retired from professional rugby last year following a decorated career at club and international level. ‘The Tullow Tank’ later returned to Leinster after accepting the role of contacts skills coach, and this year, he linked in with his home GAA club.
The Fighting Cocks contested the county Junior A final over the weekend, springing O’Brien from the bench to play at full-forward in their one-point defeat to St Mullins. He missed the county semi-final due to work commitments with Leinster, but throughout the 2023 season, O’Brien has made every effort to be available for selection.
“He gave us a bit of a lift and obviously the crowd reacted,” The Fighting Cocks PRO Paul Hickey tells The42 about O’Brien’s impact on the team. The pair are also neighbours.
“When they see Seán O’Brien coming on, everybody knows who he is and stuff like that.
“The biggest problem was that we couldn’t get enough ball into him for him to do damage. He’s a great target man and when he’s on the field, if we can get ball into him, he’s obviously very physical. If you can win the ball clean, he’ll break it and others can work off him. He’s the focal point for us when he’s on the field.
“He picked up an injury through the rugby and he was out then for a little while. Then the last few months before championship, he was back in full training doing all the running sessions and back fully on board. It’s the first year that he’s fully away from professional rugby.”
The Tullow Tank @SeanOBrien1987 played his part in @FightingCocksGF win over @LeighlinGfc in this evenings clash pic.twitter.com/dgjUSljiED
— Carlow GAA (@Carlow_GAA) August 31, 2023
The O’Brien family has a long association with The Fighting Cocks club in the area of Rathoe, including some of Seán’s siblings. Hickey explains that the former Ireland backrower continued to occasionally line out for the club throughout his rugby career, and has always valued his GAA connections.
“Seán would have made his debut for Fighting Cocks when he was 16. And then his rugby career would have been developing as well and when he got to the age of 20, the rugby would have taken over. He couldn’t give as much time to us and needed to prioritise the rugby.
“But he has made an appearance down through the years. He had lots of injuries and would have had time away from the rugby at certain times. He would have been around the club a bit more and would have togged out for us. He always enjoyed that and would have kept in contact throughout his rugby career.
“We know he’s busy so we don’t put too much pressure on. Well everyone respects him and are massive supporters of him, we don’t treat him any differently when he’s around. We’re obviously delighted to see him coming through the door but we treat him the same as any of the lads. He enjoys that as well, that it’s a break away from the fame.”
Retaining numbers in the squad is a challenge for every GAA club and for the Fighting Cocks, they have mixed fortunes on that front most years. But having a player of O’Brien’s status has certainly helped to boost interest levels, and bring in more recruits.
“Having Seán around is a massive help with that because while kids mightn’t have known him much from his playing, they all see pictures of him and their parents are well aware of who he is.”
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