James Lowe has had his calm before the storm of a new rugby season.
With his opening game for Leinster against Sharks on Saturday, the first home game will be fraught after a nervy start and two early losses on Leinster’s mini tour to South Africa.
But Lowe is ready and pumped. After the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia during the summer, the Irish winger took off with his family to a place in Bali he has been to before and will return to again. That was the calm.
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Lowe’s idea of paradise is Uluwatu in the south of the island, where he recovered from the physical and mental challenges of game after game, city after city across Australia.
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A friend of his was married there last year and the draw was strong enough for Lowe to come back and dreamily think about returning some day and setting up a rugby club.
A rugby club on an island in the Java Sea. At least he is aiming high.
“I went to Bali with my wife and two kids. We went over to a place called Uluwatu, which is South Bali. It’s one of the best places in the world. I’m going to start a rugby team, I think. I’m going to base ourselves there, 360,” says Lowe.
“My best friend got married there last year. So that was our first experience, and then we went back, and I think we’ll go back as much as we can. Yeah, it’s awesome.”
As always, families and especially children are experts in rearranging priorities.
“Yeah, they were a pretty good leveller, they bring you back to earth pretty quick,” he says. “But we had a good few days in Sydney after [the Lions]. Then flew literally flew straight there [Bali]. And it’s awesome. It’s the best place in the world.”
“My family [in New Zealand] came over to Australia. So then I didn’t have to go back, which was nice.”
The churn of 10 matches across seven cities including an opening match in Dublin against Argentina set the tone for a long, hard summer. But it is one Lowe will remember for some time and maybe learn to love.
“It was good,” said Lowe. “It was an amazing experience, as everyone will say. But yeah, it’s cool. It’s tough. It’s a tough thing. You’re away for so long.
“You’re literally either training, travelling, or playing and then obviously every city that you go to, they want to beat the bollocks out of you.
“So that makes it tough. But yeah, tours are really, really tough, but I mean, it’s a Lions tour after all.”
Despite that, Lowe talks of freshness around the Leinster camp and knows nothing but a signature win against the Sharks will convince all the stakeholders that the United Rugby Championship (URC) champions of 2024 are not in need of triage.
He expects that players from the Springbok team that won a back-to-back Rugby Championship last weekend in Twickenham will be available to Sharks, which will make the game a considerably more serious challenge.
Sharks and Springbok winger Ethan Hooker, World Cup-winning captain Siya Kolisi, lock Eben Etzebeth and prop Ox Nché all started for the Springboks against Argentina in the championship win, while Bongi Mbonambi and Grant Williams were among the replacements.
“I think physically the [Leinster] boys were really primed at the weekend and were a lot better,” says Lowe. “Pretoria is a tough place to go and we were in it for large parts of the game.
“A few soft tries, which was a disappointing bit of it, but going forward, there’s a Sharks team probably going to have internationals back, with South Africa playing in London.
“There’s going to be a lot of internationals in their side. We can’t not turn up physically and get beaten out the blocks, especially at home. That just doesn’t happen.”
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The returning international players had time with the Leinster squad for a few weeks before it travelled to South Africa, and Lowe sees few issues with them knitting together quickly.
“They’re not complete random people coming back, we’ve all been working together for a fair few years,” he says. “We know what’s expected of us. I think the boys will give them a cuddle tomorrow.
“But then come Thursday, we front up because we’re only going to get two training sessions together going into a game against a lot of Test internationals who are baying for blood.”
Now the storm.
