Independent traveller goes way out West

Rugby Interview with Mark McHugh: What a difference a season makes. There was a time last winter when the Connacht players used to meet up for training sessions wondering where they would all be next year. In a surreal build-up to their Celtic Cup semi-final meeting with Munster, the IRFU's ambiguous statement towards the very future of the sport in the province left everybody reeling.

For Mark McHugh, it was just another typical hiccup to a rugby life that has achieved excellence almost in spite of circumstances. After all, this is a man who made his debut for the western province on September 11th, 2001. It is the kind of thing you remember. A phone call to your room in Newport, Wales, as you slumber through the early afternoon. Switch on your TV, the guy said. The world is gone crazy. And jolted awake, he sat transfixed, constantly on the phone home awaiting word on his sister Michelle, who worked in the United Nations building in midtown Manhattan.

"I knew she had no reason to go down towards the World Trade district and told myself that but still, you worry."

Transatlantic communication was still impossible when he ran out on to the field to face Newport and the eerie feeling of playing sport while the outside world was in chaos is something that will never leave him. When he trooped off, two dozen texts awaited McHugh. Michelle was fine. He shook his head. Another mad episode for a rugby player who is getting there the independent way.

Because of experiences like that, the proposition of a province he had joined just two years earlier suddenly ceasing to exist in terms of rugby almost seemed par for the course. Why not? Hurdling unexpected obstacles had become second nature.

"We still trained as passionately as we always had but undoubtedly, it had an effect. Particularly, guys who were on one-year contracts were just wondering if and when they were going to be out of a job. The support we got from the public - and I mean representatives from hurling, soccer, all sports - left us in no doubt as to what rugby means here. But still, I am a realist and you know when the IRFU were talking in terms of this being an economic issue that public opinion probably wouldn't come into it."

The climax of that season - a rich vein of form imploded with consecutive losses to Munster and Pontypridd - seemed to be more about meetings than rugby. The Players Union was trying to get itself established but, in a wonderfully ironic touch, was dependent on the IRFU for financial resources and therefore was reluctant to weigh in too heavily behind Connacht. Nobody seemed certain of what was going on. It was all rumour, ambiguity and possibility.

But that was then. Christmas in Galway and Connacht are preparing to host Beziers and complete the domestic half of a deal made possible by last Sunday's famous win in France. Life is good.

"Yeah, we are looking forward to it. Last week was a great win because we really only had about 20 per cent of the possession. Our defence was excellent and I think they just ran out of ideas about halfway through. They had a ferociously big pack and skilful backs; a typical French side, but they just did not know how to break us down. We went over there with that game plan so it was very satisfying. But we always believed we could beat them."

The belief in Connacht impressed McHugh from the very outset. He landed in the province as something of a surprise but when one considers the evolution of his career, in retrospect it seems like the most natural step in the world.

In 1997 McHugh was selected alongside the likes of Ciarán Scally, Brian O'Driscoll and Shane Horgan for the IRFU's prestigious Youth Academy. Like Horgan, McHugh had not been groomed through the Leinster senior schools system but by Boyne rugby club in Drogheda. It was respectable and fed through a number of quality players but it was not part of the old school-tie network. McHugh had watched several Leinster Cup finals and knew many of his colleagues by name and sight from match reports, and at the start there was a degree of not awe or inhibition but separateness.

"All those guys knew each other. And it wouldn't be fair to say it was a clique or anything but still. Maybe I was a small bit apprehensive at first but once we ran drills and the skills sessions and I could see I was at their standard, all that disappeared."

Life moved fast and slow simultaneously in the following years. He won a place at Trinity to pursue engineering and joined St Mary's. A successful two years with the Irish Youths led to his selection for the Under-21 World Cup in Argentina.

Beforehand he had been called in by Leinster coach Mike Ruddock just to run around, to train a little, no big deal. So when he returned from Buenos Aires, he rang Ruddock wondering if he could just resume casual training. For two months he ran and next thing he knew he was on the bench and then, suddenly, he was starting. Twenty years of age and living the dream. A trip to Ravenhill to play the reigning champions of Europe? No problem; six penalties. Leicester in the European Cup a week later. Seething Donnybrook crowd, a dressing-room filled with guys like Victor Costello and Denis Hickie and Gary Halpin - and McHugh at outhalf.

Fine. Twenty-seven points on the night. Are you watching, Mr Gatland? Then, oh a bit of a downturn and then, well, Ruddock is explaining it might be best if you sit out a game or two. And you nod congenially and you find a cosy part on the bench. And there you sit for the best part of a year and a half.

"I never got demoralised," McHugh says. "Because I always loved being part of the whole set-up and playing. Yeah, I was pissed off I wasn't starting but Emmet Farrell came in and did so well - he's a terrific player - that I accepted it."

If there was a plus to the experience, it was that he forced himself to remember college. Most of the class were submitting their final projects when McHugh, noted master of the last-gasp autumn repeats, got down to considering the sphere of engineering to which he would make his contribution. By the seat of his pants, he insists, he passed his finals and on the day he walked out of his last exam, uppity in attitude and the sun on his back, the phone rang. Leinster calling. Your contract is no more. Thanks for your time.

"It was a bit of a shock. And coming in mid-June, it could have left me high and dry. But Matt Williams had suggested earlier to me that playing in Connacht for a season might be a good option so fortunately communication had been opened there. And I hadn't been keen, to be honest, about heading across country. Just for family reasons really. But this paved the way. I had no choice. I wanted to play rugby and I was thankful."

So it was westward ho, where the Connacht guys welcomed him with open arms and ushered him towards an old familiar sight. The bench. In not so many words, McHugh learned that he was there as back-up to Eric Elwood.

That was hardly any shame; McHugh grew up enchanted by Elwood's Irish exploits and still infuriates the Galway man by telling him he'll never forget watching his drop goals against England in 1993 when he, McHugh, was just an impressionable 14-year-old.

And though it seems Elwood has been playing as long as the Rolling Stones, the guy gathers no moss. As McHugh found, he never gets injured or needs a break or has dips in form.

"So unfortunately I spent most of that season sitting," he says.

Something had to give and eventually it did. When Gavin Duffy got injured, McHugh was tried out at full back and went well. As in he kicked a game-winning drop goal from 40 metres. A fortnight later, he found himself up against Leinster. Clock ticking down, Connacht attacking and another drop goal. "That one was easy, it was only 30 metres," he laughs.

And it was the sweetest moment of his playing life. There was no vindictiveness to it; if he had a point to proveto his old province, it was so deep-rooted that he wasn't even aware of it.

He retains a fondness for all the Leinster boys and still wants the team to do well. "But that was the first night Connacht had won there in something like 20 years so it was a great moment for us."

Shortly after that he got selected for the Irish senior summer tour and won his first cap in Tonga at full back. A terrible dustbowl of a pitch and a Tongan full back with an incredible hoof kicking balls down his throat, but still. McHugh was never going to make his debut in conventional fashion.

Whether immersion in Connacht rugby will work against the acquisition of a second cap is something McHugh doesn't know. He does believe he is surrounded by players of fine, fine potential and wonders if that is generally noticed. But he cannot imagine life anywhere else right now. Galway suits him and he has enjoyed sharing the kicking duties with Elwood.

At 25, McHugh has played at all levels for Ireland and has done it his way. Right now, the west is all that is on his mind. He knows the state of the game there is far from perfect but it is a game he believes in.

"It is vitally important that Connacht do well in Europe," he says. "That we aren't just seen as the oul boggers from the west or the fourth province or Ireland's weak team or whatever. I think people underestimate us, sometimes to our advantage. We can beat good teams. We have beaten Ulster this year and last week against Beziers was good. Let's just keep it going."

Come what may.