PARENTAL influence and prudent coaching were primary factors in the climb to the eminence of full international honours for the two new caps in the Ireland team to meet the United States' Atlanta tomorrow.
Centre Kurt McQuilkin (29) and back row forward Victor Costello (25) were both full of praise for their fathers and the benefits of the coaching that they received. And while the rugby pedigrees of both are impressive their roads to the top have followed different routes.
Growing up in the New Zealand town of Tekui, McQuilkin dreamed that one day he might wear the famous All Blacks jersey. Costello in contrast was brought up in a household in Dublin where rugby was always a coin of the highest sporting value. That was in the natural order of things for a youngster whose father Paddy had been capped for Ireland in 1960 against France. Young Victor was too educated at that great rugby playing academy Blackrock College.
He was an outstanding schools player who helped Blackrock to win both Leinster Schools Junior and Senior Cups. The representative honours came too. He played for both Leinster and Ireland schools. He also represented a Ireland at under 21 level and the highest honours beckoned. But he also excelled in athletics. He won the national shot putt championship and represented Ireland in the European Championship in Genoa in 1991 and then in the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992.
His rugby career suffered as a consequence of his athletics involvement. But he did not entirely abandon his rugby career. He played for Blackrock at club level, made the Irish Development side. Last year, with athletics now shoved aside, he moved to St Mary's College. He made the Ireland team that toured Australia in the summer of 1994 but it was an unproductive tour, marred by injury.
His move to St Mary's College brought him under the influence of former Ireland coach Ciaran Fitzgerald. "His influence on my game has been absolutely immense, I owe him a great deal and he has improved my game to a huge degree, Costello said as he prepared for the biggest day of his rugby life.
"He said little to me initially but was obviously assessing my strengths and weaknesses and whatever potential I had. Having done that he got to work on me. My strengths are I suppose, my ability driving forward, as a ball carrier and upper body strength. But my defence was inadequate and Ciaran knew it and worked on it. He is still working on it and so am I. I usually play number eight but the needs on the blind side flank are different in some respects. The lines of running for instance. We have been working on that here in Atlanta," said Costello, who declared for Leinster this season after a spell with Connacht. He was a major player in Leinster's successful season.
And his father's reaction to the first cap? "He is absolutely delighted. I that he sees this as the greatest of all honours I have achieved. When I spoke to him after I heard the news, I think he had calmed down a bit as he had heard it before I rang. He may be at the match, I know he is trying to make travel arrangements. I hope he makes it," said Costello.
Kurt McQuilkin's dad Noel will not be able to travel but he will be "glued to the television", said McQuilkin. Noel is the current Bective Rangers coach and it was that involvement with the famous old Dublin club that prompted young, Kurt to travel to Ireland and play with Bective three years ago. "Obviously dad has had a tremendous influence on my rugby, but when I came to Ireland three years ago, I had intended to stay just a season. Now I see Ireland as my home, said McQuilkin, who is a development Officer with the IRFU in Dublin. In fact I am trying to buy a house in Dublin at the moment."
He played for King Country and also North Auckland at representative level before he came to Ireland and his father coached Ireland coach Murray Kidd as a player at sub union level in New Zealand. "Murray and my family come from towns only about 20 miles apart," said McQuilkin.
"So much has happened to me so quickly. I got into the Leinster squad, then the team then the Ireland squad and now I am playing for Ireland. It is all like a beautiful dream only it is true. I was hoping I might get in, was tipped by several of the journalists, but getting in and being tipped can be very different," said McQuilkin who sees his strengths "as reasonably good hands good support play and positional sense. I am not the fastest thing on two feet, but I suppose I get there and I pride myself on tackling well." He could have added a very preceptive football brain.
So two more on the list of Ireland's rugby inter nationals whose biggest day is almost at hand. "It is a tremendous feeling," said McQuilkin, a sentiment shared by Costello who has experienced the demands of the big sporting occasion, but for whom Atlanta will always have a special place. ,Had he not changed sporting direction, he might well have been performing in this city in another sport at this summer's Olympics. Right now he has no doubt, he had made the right choice.
