Ex-Ireland U-20 player McGuigan key to Gloucester reaching their ambitions

George McGuigan’s decision to swap Newcastle for the West country in December raised a few eyebrows. Signing the 29-year-old hooker represented a significant coup for Gloucester, a decision prompted by a serious leg injury suffered by England international Jack Singleton.

Few expected the Newcastle Falcons to let him go, a player who had scored 37 tries – 15 in one season – in 152 matches for the club during two spells either side of a couple of years at the Leicester Tigers. McGuigan had been a member of Eddie Jones’s England squad last summer and seven years ago had played a couple of matches for the Saxons.

Gloucester’s head coach George Skivington said of his latest signing: “It’s a huge coup for the club that we’ve been able to secure someone of George’s talent. While he will provide extra cover in the absence of Jack, he’s with us for the long term, and I’m excited to see the role he can play in helping the club reach its ambitions this season and beyond.”

He’s already played three matches for the Cherry and Whites, including a first start in a narrow 19-16 defeat to Saracens last weekend. His fourth appearance – having been registered for Europe by his new club – should be, barring injury, the Heineken Champions Cup pool match against Leinster at Kingsholm on Saturday (1pm), when he will renew an acquaintance with a former team-mate.

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Once upon a time, McGuigan was an Ireland underage international, at Under-18 and Under-20 levels – one of seven siblings, his mum hailed from Tyrone, his late father from Derry and by his reckoning he has 58 Irish cousins – and in the latter age grade played under Mike Ruddock in the 2013 Six Nations and the Junior World Championship in France that summer.

A victory over England in the Six Nations – they would go on to become the world champions that summer – enabled the young McGuigan to return to his club and enjoy the bragging rights. He recalled: “I was able to go back to Newcastle without having to worry about getting teased by the lads.

“My parents are Irish, although I was brought up in the northeast but I’ve always played for Ireland, and it has pushed on me quite a lot. It’s been great to be part of the U20s.”

Included among his team-mates in an Ireland squad that also beat France to finish third, was a quartet of current Leinster players: Robbie Henshaw, Luke McGrath, Ed Byrne and Josh van der Flier. The first three are injured but the world player of the year, van der Flier, is likely to be in the visiting side.

Connacht quintet Tom Daly, Tom Farrell, Adam Byrne, Peter Dooley, Gavin Thornbury, Munster’s Rory Scannell and Jack O’Donoghue, Brian Byrne (Bristol), Dave Shanahan (Ulster), Darren Sweetnam (Oyonnax) and Mark Roche (Ireland Sevens) were part of Ruddock’s squad that finished eighth in the World Championship; all are currently playing professional rugby.

McGuigan’s decision to remain playing in England ultimately defined his international prospects, although he did receive one final inquiry from an Irish perspective subsequently as he explained in an interview last year.

“I spoke to Joe Schmidt before the World Cup in 2015 but that was the last time, I’ve spoken to anyone in Ireland. I just want to play international rugby and if it doesn’t come through England, if it comes through Ireland, I just want to play at the highest level I can.”

He played a couple of matches for the England Saxons in 2016 but the presence of hookers like Jamie George, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Singleton and his former Newcastle team-mate Jamie Blamire (six tries in six caps) meant that he was never capped at senior level despite the consistent excellence of his performances in the English Premiership.

There was speculation last year that Munster might be interested in signing McGuigan but nothing of substance ensued. Dean Richards, Newcastle’s director of rugby, warned in an interview ahead of England’s 2021 summer tour to Australia that if Jones didn’t cap McGuigan, Ireland just might.

He ventured: “We have said for a long time that George has been outstanding and he is quite pragmatic about it and if Eddie [Jones] doesn’t look at him then it wouldn’t surprise me if Ireland didn’t start looking at him.

“George is battle-hardened and is ready to go, we have previously had inquiries about him [from Ireland] and they will be keeping an eye on him because he is a really good option for any international team.”

While it was never going to be the case given Ireland’s ever-expanding depth of quality at hooker, spearheaded by Dan Sheehan and Rónan Kelleher, both of whom McGuigan is likely to come up against on Saturday afternoon at Kingsholm, it doesn’t take away from the latter’s prowess.

Cowan-Dickie’s injury means he might be included in new England coach Steve Borthwick’s squad for the upcoming Six Nations Championship. For now though, it’s all about trying to help Gloucester beat Leinster, and then perhaps catching up with a former teenage team-mate.