WITH SO MUCH talk last week focusing on the return of one tighthead, we were all a little guilty of forgetting to mention the arrival of another
Tom O’Toole can understand all that, given Tadhg Furlong’s past achievements. Still, the Ulster prop has an interesting story of his own, to tell.
It starts in Ratoath, until his father’s work commitments led to the O’Tooles relocating to the far side of the world, when their youngest boy was six.
Brisbane, it’s fair to say, is a bit more of a rugby town than Ratoath, and after dipping in and out of a number of sports, volleyball, basketball, soccer, O’Toole ended up in rugby ‘because of my body shape’.
It suited him. “But ultimately I wanted to come home, I always wanted to play rugby in Ireland, I wanted to experience schooling here and play school rugby,” he says. “It was a dream of mine back in Australia, something that I didn’t think would actually happen. But when the opportunity arose with Ulster, it was an unbelievable thing to get.”
That opportunity came about six years ago when a Bangor man, Johnny McMurphy, made the IRFU aware of his progress and eligibility. O’Toole was 16 when he got the call, telling him he had a week to decide whether to come home, and start a new life for a second time, this time in Belfast’s Campbell College, where former Ireland international, Brian Robinson, was his coach.
“Johnny had put my name in the (Irish Exiles) system when I was 14. Then a year and a half later, I got in touch with him again saying that I was returning home to see family with my parents. He said if I didn’t mind, would I like to a trip up to Ulster to meet Kieran Campbell, the academy manager at the time.
“I took him up on that, discussed a few things with Kieran and with Ulster and returned back to Australia after a few weeks, didn’t think much about it, just thought what an experience to go in and see one of the provinces.”
Months passed. Then one night O’Toole had the courage to make contact with Campbell again, who told him that if he was serious about coming home, spending a couple of years in an Ulster school might be an idea. He went with it.
“Leaving school probably would have been an easier transition for me, settling myself in Belfast for a couple of years, playing school rugby,” O’Toole says. “I had a week to decide and I just thought I’d take the opportunity. So that’s how I ended up at Ulster.”
Brisbane and Belfast are different kinds of towns, not just climatically.
“Yeah, it was a pretty big shock, it kind of blew me away! Luckily when I arrived in Belfast it was August, the start of September and the weather was still fairly nice so I was still enjoying the sun a little bit, as much as I could.
“Campbell is a really nice historic school, beautiful scenery, beautiful old buildings, so it was a very different transition from what I was used to.
“Yet it was something that I was excited to be joining, especially because of their rugby history, with Chris Farrell being an ex-Campbellian student also it was nice to go there and leave a bit of a mark.
“Still, initially it was a huge shock and I probably didn’t get used to it for about a year.”
He calls Belfast home now, settling not just into the city but also into the Ulster first team. “It’s somewhere that I’ve had to grow up and look after myself, those two years of boarding school, it’s where I transitioned from a teenager to a man.
“So it’s where I had to look out for myself a little bit, but it’s somewhere that I wanted to make my home and it’s been very, very kind to me. Belfast is an unbelievable place for me to live at the moment.”
For the next couple of months, though, he’ll be living in the Ireland team bubble. A first cap could soon be his.
“Look, I think Andy Farrell’s a very intelligent coach so I don’t think he would bring me in, especially when there are only five props, if he didn’t believe in me.
“And I think his belief and the coaches’ belief gives me an extreme amount of belief in myself, and confidence.
“I haven’t played international, so it’s one of those areas where it’s a bit unknown, but with myself, compared to being in the camp last year, the transition and the growth I’ve had within the year, and the people around me, the leaders that I have such as Cian Healy and Tadhg, if I do get the opportunity I’ll be ready to perform.
“But look, ultimately that’s up to the coaches and I’m here just to be a sponge, learn as much as I can as possible by getting the opportunity to go hard, really just go for it.
“I’m patient, I’m really just excited to be here, excited to be in this environment and working with the team that we have and the quality of players we have around us.”
