On-song Bowe now more comfortable in lead role

INTERVIEW: TOMMY BOWE: Johnny Wattersontalks to Ireland winger Tommy Bowe who has blossomed since joining Ospreys

“I DON’T get many ‘what about her eyes?’,” says Tommy Bowe, picking up on one of the principal social differences between playing his rugby in Ireland and with the Ospreys in Wales.

Bowe's fearless rendition of the Irish classic Black Velvet Band on the stage outside the Mansion House in Dublin following Ireland's 2009 Grand Slam win illustrated, if only for the first time, that "one in, all in" is not always a guiding principle of Irish rugby. Since then, the line Her eyes they shone like diamonds, has followed him around the country, nipping at his heels at every turn.

Still the Irish winger is an easy-going fellow and with his own recent sparkle in the Heineken Cup and his growing stature as a player, he can take just about anything these days. Ireland tugs at his emotional strings but he does not deny the move has been a good one in bringing on his game and also, if only occasionally, letting him shrink away from rugby.

“I think that’s one thing I enjoy about being in Wales,” he says. “In Wales rugby is massive. But if you are not in the Welsh side it’s really not that big. It’s quite easy for me to go unnoticed. I don’t get many ‘what about her eyes?’

“Then when I come back home I walk through the lobby and I’ve some fella telling me not to give up the day job. I come back to that whenever I come home, which is nice, but at the same time I still like to go back to Wales and just blend in to normality.”

Bowe has blossomed since joining the Welsh club 18 months ago and that perceptible elevation in performance has fortified his all-round game in commanding fashion. Since the Lions summer tour and the different lines of running and timing he has harvested from players like Lee Byrne, Mike Phillips, Shane Williams or James Hook, the 2010 version of Tommy Bowe is an altogether more sophisticated model, exploding the idea too that away from the Irish provinces is also out of the Ireland coach’s eye line.

“Yeah, I learned a lot of new things,” he says.

“I’ve definitely stepped my game up in a lot of different aspects that I wasn’t so good at before. I like to influence the players there (Ospreys) and I think I’ve brought a little bit more of a leadership role to my game since going over.

“I definitely feel I’m one of the respected leaders within the team and that has given me huge confidence for coming back into Ireland. Here we have so many influential senior players, and you saw that on the Lions tour.

“But for me to be able to come back here and be able to give my speak and to be able to feel confident about my points of view and back it up on the pitch is nice.”

They are not words Bowe would have spoken even a year ago and doubtlessly Ireland coach Declan Kidney will take heart. But Leinster’s Shane Horgan and Ulster’s Andrew Trimble, both of whom have been playing with renewed zest and influence, feel a restoration of their international status is also in order. Their efforts will hardly make it easy for Bowe to seamlessly carry on. But more often with club and country the Monaghan man has been aggressively bringing himself into matches both defensively and in attack.

“I think I’ve been doing that more and more as each game goes by with Ireland,” he says. “I try to get my hands on the ball and whenever I do get my hands on it, I try to make an impact with it. I’ve definitely brought that in to my game with Ireland and now it’s a case of stepping it up.

“I know that’s the strongest part of my game, and if I want to get in the team that’s what I have to do.”

Ospreys’ run in the Heineken Cup and their quarter-final meeting in April in France with Biarritz Olympique will ensure strong opposition beyond the Six Nations. But Bowe is looking even further and remains stung by missing out on the last World Cup in France.

“There was a huge pull for me to come back to Ireland and be playing my rugby in my home country,” he says. “But I had to look at it from a rugby point of view, and I just thought that since going over there my game has definitely come on in leaps and bounds.

“The people suit me on the coaching side of things and from a purely rugby point of view it made sense that I stay where I am. Especially with the World Cup; it was a huge disappointment for me not to be involved in the World Cup last time.”

Good then that the day job, as it were, is going very well indeed.