‘He definitely would have played senior football with Dublin’ - How the GAA helped shape Leinster star Ryan Baird

Long before Ryan Baird was blazing a trail on the international rugby stage, he was tormenting hurling and football defences with his towering frame and ferocious power.

For all that he may have come through the famed St Michael’s College system, Baird owes much of his development to his days when he harnessed his skills on the GAA pitch with Naomh Olaf.

Throughout his 10 years playing with the Sandyford-based club, those who watched Baird become a standout footballer hoped against hope that he would ignore rugby’s advances and stick with the  round ball.

Crucially, however, no one in Olaf’s ever tried to talk Baird out of following his dream of becoming a professional rugby player, and while there were gentle nudges along the way, it soon became apparent that this naturally gifted all-rounder had a bright future ahead of him, regardless of what sport he opted to pursue.

A single-figure handicapper playing out of The Castle Golf Club, Baird has always enjoyed sporting success, but coming from a grounded family, education has been just as important in shaping the man he has become today.

The 21-year-old’s parents Siobhán and Andrew, who is a former Leinster Branch referee, have been key drivers in that, as Baird is currently on a scholarship in Trinity, where he is studying Computer Science and Business.

Ryan’s brothers Cameron and Zach (a talented young hooker coming through at Michael’s) have also been there every step of the way.

According to Baird’s former football coach John O’Brien, it was Siobhán who first came up with the bright idea of bringing her son down to Olaf’s, after she saw Luke Fitzgerald on TV singing the praises of the club, with whom he also starred throughout his underage days.

In more recent years, Dublin defender David Byrne has been the poster boy of Olaf’s, but the club also has strong rugby ties, with Fitzgerald and ex-Leinster winger Darragh Fanning having come through their system.

O’Brien remembers the day Baird first arrived down for U-7s training, right up to his last game for the U-16s, at which point he had already moved from The High School to Michael’s, where rugby really took hold.

“The last three games Ryan played for us was U-16s in the Division 1 League that year,” O’Brien, a past chairperson of Olaf’s, recalls. “We played all the big clubs, Vincent’s, Cuala and Naomh Fionnbarra. The last game he played, he only came on for the second half because he was minding himself for the rugby.

“He came on and he buried two goals. We stuck him in full-forward and all we did was kick the ball into him. He would be in full-forward, but for the kick-out, he would be told to go out to midfield, get the ball and give it to Ronan Watters (former Ireland U-20 international) or Luke Doran (former Dublin minor) and get straight back in.

“If he didn’t win the ball himself, he just knocked it down for someone else. Lads had an awful job catching him or taking the ball off him once he got it. And if he got a free run, forget about it!”

Paul Lyons was Baird’s hurling coach in Olaf’s, and he too remembers his pure raw ability.

“Ryan was a beast,” Lyons says. “You put him in at full-forward, and he took some stopping. It was all about getting the ball to him because no one could take it off him.

“He was dominant. Any position on the pitch we would put him into, he dominated. Whether we played him at full-back or full-forward or midfield, he would have been dominant.”

Olaf’s knew they had a potential star on their hands, but the problem for them was, so too did Michael’s, as Baird was also quickly on Leinster’s radar.

His growth spurt coincided with the last of his GAA playing days, before he focused all of his attention on rugby and filling out his 6ft 6in frame to become a supreme athlete.

“I remember when he was around 15, he was playing a lot of rugby in school and at that stage, you could really see him start to develop as a player,” Lyons says. “Most of our lads were scrawny fellas, but Ryan had a bit of muscle and bulk on him that was coming from the rugby.”

O’Brien echoes those sentiments and is in no doubt that Baird could have followed Byrne into the Dublin set-up.

“Once he went to Michael’s, that was the turning point,” O’Brien admits. “The night we were beaten in the minor county final, he was saying he would have to make his mind up, but he said, ‘I’m 51 per cent going to stick with the GAA, 49 per cent I’m not going with the rugby’.

“Then a month later, he came back and said he was going into the Leinster set-up and off he went. I think he was caught up in the emotion of it being a final and the end of the season.

“I was gutted to see him going. If we had him that year, my Jesus!

“Of course, some lads would be thick enough to say, ‘Come on, we know you’ll get playing for Dublin’. But our group of mentors always recognised that rugby was professional.

“By the end of it, I was nearly upset that he was going because he was seriously developing. He had reached a point where if you gave him the ball, he would just knock lads out of his way.

“He definitely could have gone on to play senior football with Dublin.

“Luke Fitzgerald, Darragh Fanning and Ronan Watters were the same. It’s a different skill-set, but at 13, 14, 15, if they went into a Dublin development squad, they definitely would have succeeded.

“Imagine Ryan Baird playing Gaelic football for Dublin now. He might be ‘The Bomber’, but he was ‘The Bomber’ of our team!”

O’Brien also draws a comparison with Dublin forward Eoghan O’Gara, whom he sees plenty of similarities with Baird’s powerful style of play at underage level.

For all of his undoubted talent, however, it was Baird’s incredibly driven mindset that often caught the attention of his coaches.

“Ryan was relentless, but he never looked for attention,” O’Brien maintains.

“He was always just focused, nothing would distract him. I remember one U-13 game, a big row broke out, but the other lads would just bounce off him. He would be smiling away to himself.

“He would never get dragged into the verbals. Even at that age, he was very disciplined. We’d call him the ‘gentle giant’.

“His father Andrew would always be up watching the games. It reminded me of Des (Fitzgerald) with Luke. He might pull Ryan aside and bring a bottle of water over to him and be giving him a bit of quiet advice.”

Baird has never been short of guidance along the way and he too is proud of his Olaf’s roots, just as he is of having come through Old Wesley’s underage set-up.

The Leinster lock’s recent international debut during Ireland’s Six Nations win over Italy brought an even greater sense of pride to everyone associated with Olaf’s, who are delighted to have played some part in his rise to the top.

“Very few people in any sport get a chance to wear the green. We are all walking taller just by the fact he is from the area and his connection to the club,” says John Somers, Olaf’s current chairperson.

It helps too that Olaf’s have a strong connection with De La Salle Palmerston (DLSP), as the sports work together to continue to produce stars of the future, regardless if it is rugby, hurling or football.

And the focus is not just on boys either, as Olaf’s playing numbers currently stand at 52pc boys and 48pc girls.

“My lads see what Ryan has done and they want to emulate that,” says Chris Moore, who coaches Olaf’s and DLSP’s underage teams.

“It’s huge. I’ve always said to them, you look at the likes of Rob Kearney who played GAA all the way up. The synergy between the two sports is fantastic.

“They look at Ryan Baird and having someone like him in Olaf’s is a really great thing for them to look up to.”

O’Brien and Lyons are relishing the chance to welcome Baird and his family back to Olaf’s some time in the future when the world becomes a bit more normal again. The club’s supporters’ app has been buzzing over the last few weeks as Baird won his first three Ireland caps.

There is genuine goodwill towards one of their own and come five o’clock this evening, the Olaf’s crowd will be glued to the TV, as they hope to see Baird come off the bench and help Leinster beat Munster in the PRO14 final.

“The pride is massive,” O’Brien adds.  “Any kid who is 11, 12, 13, seeing someone like Ryan Baird having played both sports, will absolutely be driven to follow in his footsteps.”

Dublin GAA’s loss has certainly been Irish rugby’s gain.

Online Editors