RUGBY IRISH PLAYERS WITH GAA BACKGROUND:MOST LIKELY there's never been such a Gaelic-infused Irish rugby team to take to a Six Nations game as this Saturday, and that seems particularly appropriate as Ireland face up to a second and last encounter with England at Croke Park amid this brief window in Irish sporting history.

Nothing embodied Ireland’s unforgettable 43-13 win over England two years ago than Shane Horgan fielding Ronan O’Gara’s cross-kick for the coup de grace.

Indeed, the Croker effect must only add to the pain which the likes of Horgan and Girvan Dempsey are feeling at missing out so far this season.

Like Dempsey, Saturday’s replacement fullback Geordan Murphy is another whose brilliance under the high ball was at least in part honed on GAA fields in his formative Newbridge years, and in this regard perhaps nobody betrays his GAA roots more ably than Rob Kearney.

“I was lucky in a way that the two seasons differed, so as soon as the rugby season was over I was in to the thick of the Gaelic season,” he reflects, having started playing Gaelic football at seven or eight with Grange National School, progressing to Cooley Kickhams at under-14s.

In his last of three years on the Louth minors they were beaten by Dublin at the Leinster semi-final stage in a replay, having come within a kick of reaching the final.

“If we hadn’t been beaten by Dublin I would have played at Croke Park which would have been unbelievable, wouldn’t it?” he says, still nursing the sense of regret. “But it wasn’t to be. We were beating them in the first game and they equalised in the last minute of the game. Not even a minute to go. It was the last kick of the game. Then in the replay they beat us by two points, and we had a good side too. It was a killer.

“That was the time before Leinster academies, and while I wouldn’t say Gaelic was my first love, it was a big, big sport for me at the time.”

Indeed, his last game for Cooley Kickhams was in the Louth county final, a game for which he put off his Leinster Academy contract. “We were beaten by the local team from St Pat’s, and there was big rivalry between those two clubs.”

It comes as no surprise that he played his Gaelic in midfield, where that ability to pluck high balls out of the sky was fine-tuned.

Comparing a rugby fullback to a GAA midfielder, Kearney says: “They’re probably the two most similar positions on both teams. Fielding in both positions is probably the most important attribute you can bring really. I’ve been practising it from a young age so I’d bloody want to be good at it.”

Of course, a crossover between sports can only be of benefit to the sport which a player ultimately specialises in, be it the professionalism and single-minded determination which golf and swimming also fostered in Paul O’Connell, or soccer for the likes of Ronan O’Gara and Jerry Flannery, but Gaelic football is perhaps the closest in terms of its skills’ set.

“I think evasion is a big part of Gaelic football too,” says Kearney, adding: “You’ve got your support play and probably the biggest thing of all in Gaelic football would be your peripheral vision, and unlike rugby you’ve got players coming at you from all directions.”

Brian O’Driscoll didn’t play any rugby until he went to secondary school in Blackrock; Gaelic football was his preferred game until that point. He played in primary school with Belgrove, but predominantly with Clontarf GAA club, and recalls modestly: “Actually, the year after I left to go to Willow in sixth class, they (Belgrove) got to Croker to play in a final. So I was the only one holding them back!”

The Irish captain moved between midfield and the half-forward line, and was “a bit of a points scorer, but I suppose I had a bigger engine in those days too.

“I would have played a lot of GAA back in those days, far more than any other game from about the age of seven to 12,” he recounts, and has no doubt it helped his rugby. “Definitely in the hand-eye co-ordination. You can see the guys who are good footballers, people like Shaggy (Horgan) and Kearney and Geordan that are so good under the high ball.

“There’s not many sports that you have to catch the ball above your head. So I think it does count for a huge amount and being spatially aware as to getting from point A to B to catch a ball, and to find space.”

Given so many of this team and squad have played Gaelic in their formative years it adds to the buzz of representing Ireland at the home of the GAA. O’Driscoll concluded: “I think it gives us a great appreciation for what it means to Ireland as a whole and I think it makes us feel all the more honoured to be allowed play there because we know the history that goes with it. And this is the last time we play England here, so enjoy it while we can.”