The clear blue sky backdrop to Hugo Keenan’s profile at the Irish team base in Portugal was a moment’s throwback to a previous life. It could have been from his rugby of not so long ago with the Irish Sevens team, a cherry-picked circuit embracing most of the glamorous capitals of the world. Unerringly they play in brilliant sunshine.
So fast has Keenan transitioned into the Six Nations fullback position ahead of Jordan Larmour, Andrew Conway or Robbie Henshaw that the Sevens career of 2019 seems almost ancient history. His has been, perhaps, the most harmoniously slick move from nowhere to somewhere in recent Irish rugby.
Keenan arrived less than 18 months ago fully formed, fully capable and seamlessly up to the squad tempo and thinking. The lack of fanfare was itself like a self-satisfied exhalation that without really trying Andy Farrell found his man to follow Rob Kearney. It was, as they say, a soft opening.
“No I don’t think so,” says Keenan, explaining that there was no big conversation with Farrell about playing fullback but an organic movement on to the squad and into the position.
“To be honest I got into the squad originally through a bit of luck. There was a good few injuries at the time, people coming back from lockdown with a few niggles. I got my first run in the European games [with Leinster]. That’s what got me into the Irish squad.
“Then Earlsy [Keith Earls] had a knock and there were basically a few injuries that gave me a chance. Then it was about taking those opportunities when they came. So there was no long-term chat with Faz [Farrell] or anything like that. It was always game by game and that’s how I was taking it.”
In that short space of time Keenan has earned 16 caps and scored five Irish tries. But it has been his all-round running game that has captured admiring attention.
An entirely different player to Kearney, Keenan’s outhalf Sevens instincts, perhaps, come into play in always being available, good hands and a go-forward dynamism that suits the way Farrell is trying to have his Irish team play.
Last March Rugby World magazine ran the headline ‘Who is Hugo Keenan?’ explaining that although he played in an Under-20 World Cup final against England in 2016, his debut for Ireland came in the rearranged 2020 Six Nations fixture with Italy, in October of that year. Starting on the wing, he scored two tries in a 50-17 win.
“I suppose I’d like to think I’d be better since then,” he says. “It hasn’t actually been that long ago, just maybe a year and three or four months since my debut so I think you get more used to international rugby.
“It is always a touch that there is never going to be an easy game in international rugby. So, definitely not resting on my laurels. It’s always based on continuing a lot or work-ons from last season I want to bring to this year. I’m trying to constantly improve.
“Opposition will always get to know you a bit more since you started playing. So there will be those challenges you will be coming up against as well that you have to deal with.”
Keenan has played on both wings, twice on the left and twice on the right with all the rest of his outings with Ireland coming at fullback. But he has made the position his own since December 2020 against Scotland. For the 10 Irish matches since then, all have been at 15 with little sign of anyone prising him out.
Whoever Wales pick on the wings, the two Lions Josh Adams and Gloucester's Louis Rees-Zammit or another combination, Keenan has faced similar threats. But there is a can do nonchalance about his game too.
“Camp can never be really comfortable,” he says with the sunshine on his back. “But you get more familiar with the environment, you obviously know the lads a lot better.
“You’re more used to it. You know what’s going on. You’re always on your toes. It’s always tough. They always push you and it’s good to get out of your comfort zone.”
There has been a kind of a feet-on-the-ground stock phrase the players have been using and Keenan is no different. Beating New Zealand in the autumn was a good feeling and energy generator but, with no disrespect, it was largely for bragging rights.
“We didn’t win anything in November,” he says. That’s the phrase. “We’ve got an opportunity over the next six, eight, whatever number of weeks it is to get a bit of silverware. We’re focusing game by game.”
They’ve got a goal. Currently, a team too.
