Celtic League: Gerry Thornley on the Leinster secondrow who moved from Munster to give his career a boost

It's a mixed blessing being a secondrow contemporary of Paul O'Connell, Donncha O'Callaghan and Mick O'Driscoll. While it's one thing learning from their lineout skills, their ball-carrying and what they say on a pitch, it's another trying to nudge in among them or ahead of them.

To move his career upwards, Trevor Hogan concluded, he first had to move sideways.

"Initially when I thought about moving to Leinster, I was fairly hesitant. It's tough when you're leaving your home, but you just realise you have to play games, and it was a great opportunity to come up here and play with such quality in Leinster. It was the middle of last season when I decided I needed to make that change. Especially when you're a certain age you have to realise you need games."

At 26, Hogan's career had reached something of a crossroads, and despite having played over 50 Celtic League games with Munster, just one starting appearance in the European Cup was a more frustrating statistic for him.

Knowing he was leaving as Munster reached their holy grail must have felt a little odd?

"It felt a bit strange during the semi-final, but in the final once that final whistle blew there was no strangeness then. it was so overwhelming. It was surreal. It was just a matter of celebrating what had been achieved, no matter if you were in the 22. Everybody was on the pitch."

Hogan has taken a somewhat circuitous route to his current standing. To begin with, he came through the junior club route via Nenagh Ormond, having only started to play the game in earnest with them aged 16.

Previous attempts to pick up a rugby ball on the CBS Nenagh playing field usually resulted in "the brothers chasing us off the pitch", although he adds the increased profile of many Tipperary-reared players, along with the developmental work of John Lacey and others in the county, has seen a shift in attitude in his old school and others.

"Football was actually my first love. Jerry Flannery goes on about his soccer skills but I'm telling you . . ." says Hogan, letting the sentence trail off in a manner suggesting his were much better.

"To be honest, I was just a very willing centre half and whatever touch I had I've probably lost. But I loved it."

His size prompted friends to suggest he try rugby, and he can still recall loving his first training session one Tuesday evening in darkening gloom and his first game, a win over Kilfeacle the following Saturday. Needless to say, he was shoved immediately into the secondrow.

Having already spent some of his formative days in the Leinster under-20, Trinity and Blackrock set-ups while studying in Dublin, his recent move certainly won't present much of a culture shock.

Hogan is a somewhat unnerving subject for journalists, given he has more qualifications than many of us, having undertaken a degree in media studies at DCU. It was during this time that he played with Trinity.

"I played in a couple of those colours matches here," he says, nodding toward the adjacent Donnybrook pitch from the Old Wesley clubhouse were he talked earlier this week.

Purely because of the desire to play in the first division he moved to Blackrock for a couple of seasons, another enjoyable period in his early club career.

However, mindful not to be seen as a player with an acute wanderlust, he has remained with Shannon despite his summer move.

Invariably, he will be asked to cite the differences between the two provincial rivals.

"The craic is the same, the slagging is the same, the personalities are the same. Everybody has their feet on the ground. There are no stars in either dressingroom. Of course, there is a difference in playing style. Even in training with the likes of Brian O'Driscoll, Shane Horgan, Denis Hickie, Gordon D'Arcy and the like. If you make the right support run, there's a good chance you'll get an offload."

Proof of the pudding was his first try for Leinster last week, when making the support run to score off an offload from Luke Fitzgerald.

"Improving my ball skills and ball carrying in open play is something I want to achieve from this move. I also want to improve my lineout game. I'd be seen as a front of the line specialist, but in the modern game you have to be more versatile than that."

He is not emotely presumptuous enough to regard a starting place as automatically likelier because of the move.

"Malcolm (O'Kelly) coming back has heightened the competition for places, because you've also got Owen Finegan and Adam Byrnes there."

Grateful his ankle injury recovered in time for last week's game in Llanelli and held up, Hogan knows he has to make the most of whatever opportunities come his way. In that sense, not an awful lot has changed.