Casey happy to be an Exile in his own land

INTERVIEW BOB CASEY:ROOM-MATES and friends while boarding at Blackrock College, Bob Casey and Leo Cullen will captain London Irish and Leinster respectively for what promises to be a seismic Heineken Cup collision at the RDS on Friday night between the Guinness Premiership league leaders and an Irish province that enjoys a similar status in the Magners League, writes JOHN O'SULLIVAN

It’s a homecoming of sorts for the Maynooth-born Casey, who played all his underage representative rugby with Leinster and had three seasons with the senior side before joining London Irish in July 2002. He won’t allow sepia-tinted images from days of toiling alongside Brian O’Driscoll, Shane Horgan, Mal O’Kelly and Cullen, not to mention several of the province’s backroom team, to soften his determination.

Casey has spent the last eight seasons at London Irish and is a hugely popular figure with team-mates, management and supporters. He is the Irish in London Irish, at least from a playing perspective. It’s a responsibility he’s embraced, based on an appreciation of how others perceive him but there is also a realisation the club have given him so much beyond the parameters of the rugby pitch.

He lives in St Margaret’s, a hamlet of quasi-rural life nestled between the affluence of Twickenham and Richmond. “I have been living there for the last eight years, near my secondrow buddy Nick Kennedy. A lot of the other lads live out near where we train which is 10 minutes away (by car) but it is a little bit too far out for me because I have a good few mates who work in the City and I like to get in there.

“St Margaret’s is a gorgeous village, with a friendly community; you would not think you were living in London. There’s a local pub, deli, shop and a really quaint high street. There are little parks and you can stroll into Richmond if you want a bit more action.”

His Irish genes are obviously in no danger of being anglicised.

Casey’s heritage is an important part of his appeal to the London-based Irish community who follow the club. He laughs that people must be sick and tired of him turning up to functions. “There is no pressure per se but in terms of time commitment it is massive.

“I would be wheeled out for a lot of the corporate stuff. Unfortunately, I am the only Irish accent around. Mind you a lot of the people who run the club are Irish; staff like Kieran McCarthy, Justin Bishop and Alan Ryan, the strength and conditioning coach, and the entire board of the club.

“The club means so much to me. I’m desperate to see them get to the top of the Premiership, be competitive in the Heineken Cup and stay there, not to disappear. I had four or five years where we played really terrible rugby. We could not score a try for love nor money. I probably scored one and was close to being our top try scorer. We relied on Barry Everitt’s boot.

“I have been through that and it’s one of the reasons why I have stayed here for so long. I could have moved on a few times but I have invested so much that I could never walk away from a successful London Irish team. That’s why I’m staying and that’s why I give so much of my time off the field to the corporate stuff, to the community stuff. I want to see us as successful as we can be and to achieve that we need the crowds. I’m happy to do whatever it takes to help with that profile off the pitch.

“During the week I would stay in about one night. I have a poker night, minimum once a week. I’ll probably go out for dinner with some of the lads on the team or some of my mates who live over here. We’ll take in the cinema at different stages. Some of the guys over here would be among my closest friends. I’ve known Dave Quinlan (former Leinster and Ireland centre) since we were 15. Mark O’Brien, who has been here for a dozen years, is a half-way house for Irish rugby waifs and strays, and I moved over here at the same time.

“There are a lot of my contemporaries from Dublin who moved here to work in the City. Many of them would like to go home now they are hitting their early 30s. The plan was to make money and then come home with both the financial rewards and the experience but unfortunately there isn’t much to go home to at the moment. It is good for me because my friends remain here.”

It would not be stretching credibility to note a pronounced erosion of Irish influence in playing personnel terms. It’s not a conscious recruitment strategy, Casey explains: “The tax rebate scheme is a big problem in terms of trying to recruit Irish players to London Irish. That desire is also not assisted by having such a strong euro at present. The sterling differential was a significant incentive in the past.

“There is so much quality in Irish rugby, the provinces are very well structured so young players do get their chances. It’s so hard to get players because they know when they come over, you are out of the spotlight, although Declan Kidney taking over as Ireland coach has softened that attitude.

“You can’t get the young guys because they know their chances of playing for Ireland might be compromised and you can’t get the old guys because they are going to lose their tax rebate. It’s not as if Toby (Booth, the London Irish coach) hasn’t tried to recruit Irish players.”

The professional set-up at the club is a far cry from when he went there first. “When I moved over from Leinster, which even back then was a very professional set-up, the rugby side of things at London Irish was hard to believe.

“I think weights were optional. If you give a lads an option they will gratefully accept the ‘pass-the-gym-for-free’ card. We just did not have the players. I see that team I joined and look at the first two or three seasons: maybe two of them would make the starting XV now.

“Brian Smith changed all that, with Toby Booth. He changed players, the set-up, the whole ethos. Conor O’Shea implemented all this before he left. He knew what had to be done and started the ball rolling with those appointments.”

Inevitably conversation returns to Friday’s game. The recent pre-season friendly between the sides carried the bite of an Andrex toilet tissue commercial compared to the snarling intensity that’ll permeate the RDS.

Having just sat through the video analysis of Leinster’s victory over Munster last weekend with London Irish backs coach Mike Catt, Casey doesn’t conceal his admiration. “There is not a lot for us to read into because Munster didn’t have any decent attacking ball. In the lineouts, whatever ball they won was pretty average and in terms of scrum possession they didn’t have much. We were looking at the statistics and Munster only got past three phases twice in the game, which is unheard of really.

“It just illustrates how dominant Leinster were throughout the game. From our point of view the weather is expected to be bad on Friday night so it will probably limit what patterns both teams will pursue. They (Leinster) now have to have pretty much the best defence in Europe.

“That, to a large extent, won them the Heineken Cup last year. To nil Munster and go away and beat the Ospreys and Edinburgh illustrates just how hard they are to break down. They have what you’d call in rugby parlance ‘jackalers’, players who steal ball at ruck time and these are not confined to the pack; they have players capable of doing that all over the pitch.

“What impressed me most was probably the fact they were still going flat out when the game was well and truly won. There was no way they wanted to let up, which Leinster teams in the past might have done: across the board they were flying into things and the bench all made an impact.”

Wasps arrived at the RDS at the same point of last season’s Heineken Cup and were de-winged 41-11. Casey confirmed it will form part of his team briefing but far from cowed by this assignment, his side are relishing the prospect of a cut at the European champions, knowing that winning home matches is a prerequisite and the pressure is therefore on their hosts.

“I had really fond memories of my time at Leinster but this is my eighth season at London Irish so the club is a massive part of my life and a home away from home. It’ll be strange but there is a big, big job to do and emotion can’t get in the way.

“If we have one or two guys who don’t apply themselves physically and mentally then we will be beaten. Leinster have eight or nine Lions: that’s the sort of quality you are talking about and so to produce anything less than our best is going to guarantee a long night.

“That’s the big difference between the Heineken Cup and any other competition. You front up for 40 minutes and you’ll get beaten. You front up for 80 and you have every chance of winning. We are a more set-piece orientated side than say Wasps. We have two complete frontrows that rotate during matches and also take pride in the work out of touch. We know we can put teams under huge pressure in those facets of the game.”

Whatever happens on Friday night, Casey and Cullen will share a car journey on Saturday morning to Lough Rynn in Leitrim. Neil O’Donovan, outhalf on the Blackrock team that won the 1996 Leinster Schools’ Senior Cup, is getting married on Friday night. His two former team-mates will miss the speeches. The only thing yet to be determined is who, apart from O’Donovan, will be receiving the congratulations.

Bob Casey will write a weekly column starting next week that will appear in Monday’s Sports Supplement on living in London and life as a Premiership rugby player.