‘He’s a special kid’: Slow-burner Jamison Gibson-Park now at the top of his game

It's hard to credit really that Jamison Gibson-Park has spent most of his career as an understudy, or that as recently as April 2018 many were seriously questioning his selection for Leinster's Champions Cup semi-final, or indeed that last summer Conor Murray was briefly captain of the British & Irish Lions.

But here Gibson-Park is, at 30 years old, having supplanted Ireland's greatest scrumhalf as the first-choice Irish number nine and become an integral hub in this Ireland team's high-tempo, ball-in-hand brand of rugby.

Even the coach who believed in Gibson-Park the most is a little taken aback. Colin Cooper was Gibson-Park's first head coach in the pro game with Taranaki for three seasons, also bringing him into the New Zealand Maori team at the age of 21 for three seasons, and has closely followed the player's slow-burning career trajectory through the Blues, Hurricanes, Leinster and now Ireland.

It turns out the boy was born to run with a rugby ball.

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This week, Cooper told The Irish Times about a training drill from about 2012 which gives an insight into the scrumhalf’s innate speed and endurance.

“His conditioning is huge. He can run a 19/20 ‘yo-yo’ (22 metre shuttle sprints) which are now called broncos. If you’re reaching under 16 you’re too slow. Usually your frontrowers are around 16, and your backs and your fast boys get to 18, some maybe to 19. He recorded a 20.2 with us. I had two of them in the 20s, and he was one of them. He had a huge conditioning base. He’s also very quick and so his speed times were right up there – he had super speed times.”

‘Big future’

Gibson-Park hails from the Great Barrier Island, northeast of Auckland, which at the time had fewer than 800 inhabitants, before he moved to Gisborne on the New Zealand mainland aged 10 and attended Gisborne Boys' High School. In his final year, he was selected for the New Zealand Secondary Schools squad.

“Gisborne Boys’ High is on the east coast and Taranaki is on the west side of the north Island, but our union had a relationship with the school there and we actually got quite a few from Gisborne,” said Cooper, also citing the future Scottish eight Blade Thompson and Charlie Ngatai, once capped by the All Blacks, who came into the Taranaki academy with Gibson-Park.

“At a young age, he had a big future, but what he couldn’t do, was kick contestable box kicks. And I said to him: ‘Look, if you want to climb as a professional player you’ve got to box kick’.”

“And he goes: ‘Coops, I wasn’t taught to kick. I was just taught to run.’ I could understand why they didn’t want him kicking because he was such an athlete.

“But I insisted that if he was going to make it at a professional level, he was going to have to box kick with both feet, particularly the contestable kick and clearing kick. I was lucky enough to have him straight of high school to drill him with that, so to see it coming through now is quite special to watch.

“Really that’s all he had to do, along with getting his pass a little more accurate, particularly from left to right and from the deck, and he worked on that too.”

Gibson-Park played 28 NPC and ITM Cup games for Taranaki in three seasons under Cooper.

“The combination of Blade Thompson at eight and Jamo at nine cut club rugby to pieces in Taranaki. In 2014, we won the Premiership NPC (ITM Cup) for the first time in our history on our home ground and he was a big part of that.”

Gibson-Park was signed up by John Kirwan at the Auckland Blues in 2013. In his first Super Rugby campaign Gibson-Park was understudy to Piri Weepu. Injuries did for much of his second season and he was second choice to Jimmy Cowan in 2015, albeit starting six of his 14 appearances.

Gibson-Park relocated to the Hurricanes in Wellington but all his 13 appearances, including in the knockout wins over the Sharks, Chiefs and Lions which earned the Hurricanes their first Super Rugby title, were as a replacement for TJ Perenara.

“I kept telling him to be patient. ‘Your time will come. Keep working hard.’ And one day he said to me that he was off to Leinster. We wished him well. I thought it was good for him and for his family because by then he had a partner.

“But I never expected him to play for Ireland or stay in Ireland for so long. It’s just blown us away. All his fans and friends and people that know him are not surprised because of his work ethic to get there. But I am surprised that he has put out Conor Murray, who in New Zealand is a big name and is the best contestable kicker in the world.

“The other thing he had to work on his was his voice, because he’s quiet and shy. From his background, he’s respectful, very courteous but under all that he’s got a bit of a larrikin in him. When we won the Premiership for the first time I had to speak with the media and the next minute I’m soaked. Him and the prop poured a barrel of water over me.

“But he’s a special kid. I’m so proud of him. We all are, not just people in Taranaki but in this country. I can’t speak highly enough of him as a player and a person.”

When Gibson-Park pitched up in Leinster he had started seven Super Rugby matches and been a replacement in 33. Yet initially he still kept compiling his share of number “21” jerseys.

Come his second season, despite Leinster's three-into-two dilemma between James Lowe, Scott Fardy and Gibson-Park, when Luke McGrath was ruled out of their Champions Cup semi-final against the Scarlets, it was Lowe who was sacrificed despite Gibson-Park going down with the ship in a second-string home defeat by Benetton the week before. But Stuart Lancaster expressed total faith in him. "There's no doubt in my mind that he's ready to play at this level."

Gibson-Park didn’t miss a beat and Leinster won handsomely, and he was a replacement in the final against Racing 92.

There have only been seven European starts in total, but when Murray was sidelined and Gibson-Park started three successive games in last season's Six Nations, Lancaster noted a shift in mindset from always being a number two to being a number one.

Composure

“As a consequence, he plays with a lot more control and composure. He’s very down to earth, Jamo, he’s very humble and hard-working. To be an international player, you have to believe in yourself first and foremost.”

Last November, Gibson-Park started against Japan and then the All Blacks when he came up against Perenara. Prior to the game, Perenara said: “He was one of the most gifted players I ever played with – everything that guy touches often turns to gold.

“To see him come over here and be successful at club and international level has been awesome. He really deserves his spot. He’s a super dude. He plays the game in a really cool way. I enjoy the offensive game that he plays – and he puts his head in dark places on the defensive side of the ball.”

Lest we forget, Gibson-Park was only 24 when he arrived in Dublin in the summer of 2016. He arrived with Patti, now his fiancée, and then 18-month-old daughter Isabella, and they’ve since had a second girl, Iris, in 2020. His parents, Tara (whose father’s family, the Gibsons, were originally from Armagh) and Billy, visited in 2018 but since his debut against Italy in October 2020 they haven’t been able to travel over.

That Bundee Aki has become such a huge hit is perhaps not that surprising. But Gibson-Park and James Lowe demonstrate that players from New Zealand can flourish when exposed to coaching and playing environments, as well as big matches, with Leinster and Ireland.

“Behind Perenara would he have made it? Probably not,” admits Cooper. “He had to move. And ‘Lowey’ is another one I had with the Maori All Blacks at the same time. I’m not surprised with him either.

“He has an outstanding left foot. He’s got a different make-up to Jamo. He’s quite confident and strong. But it’s obviously a good sign of Leinster’s environment and their coaching, and of Ireland as a country.”

“Jamo looks like he belongs there. Now he looks experienced and confident in himself as the number one for Ireland.”

And made for this less structured Irish team too.

“As I said to you he’s got a conditioning that can play that high tempo,” added Cooper. “He’ll always be there, and he sees space. For that beautiful try in Paris, he saw that space, and he’s got great footwork.”

Low mileage too. Of Gibson-Park’s 195 representative matches in total, only 87 have been starts. He recently signed another two-year extension with Leinster and with that innate conditioning, he should have a few more years left in him yet.