Boy Wonder Captivates The Coaching Staff At The Academy – Young Johnny Kavanagh, 17, a native of Blackrock, Dublin, currently residing in Ballylaggin County Cork, sailed through his medical evaluation to secure his position at the prestigious rugby academy in Cork. Nursing a chronic groin injury since the start of last season, the youth has been given the all clear from team doctors. The Tommen College secondary school student is set to win his fifteenth cap for The Academy this weekend, having been named as starting 13 for the esteemed youth team. The natural center has been drawing attention from coaches at International level, including clubs in the U.K and southern hemisphere. When asked to comment on the school boy's accelerated rise through the ranks, the Ireland's u20's head coach, Liam Delaney, had this to say; "We are excited about the level of caliber in the up and coming players throughout the country. The future looks bright for Irish rugby." When asked specifically about the Cork school boy, Delaney said, "We have been aware of Kavanagh since his playing days in Dublin and have been in close talks with his coaches and trainers for the last eighteen months. U18's coaches are impressed. We are keeping a keen eye on his progression and are impressed with the level of intelligence and maturity he naturally exudes on the pitch. He's certainly one to watch out for when he comes of age."
Johnny
I was exhausted.
Seriously, I was so tired I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open and my focus on point. My day from hell was turning into the week from hell, and that was a special feat considering it was Monday.
Falling straight back into school, not to mention training and the gym six nights a week, did that to a guy.
To be honest, I'd been running on empty since last summer, having returned from an international campaign with the u18's, where I was playing alongside the best in Europe, only to head right into an intense six-week conditioning camp in Dublin.
After that, I had a ten-day break before returning to school and resuming my commitments with my club and The Academy.
I was also hungry, which didn’t bode well for my temper.
I didn’t do well with long intervals between meals.
My lifestyle and intense training regime required me to eat at regular, allotted time frames.
Every two hours was ideal for my body when I was consuming a 4,500 calorie a day diet.
Leaving my stomach waiting longer than four hours, and I was a moody, pissy bitch.
It wasn’t like I was particularly looking forward to the mountain of fish and steamed vegetables waiting for me in my lunch box, but I was in a routine, dammit.
Fucking with my regimen was a surefire way of waking the hangry beast inside of me.
We'd been on the pitch less than half an hour and already I'd taken out three of my teammates and had taken a bollocking from our coach in the process.
In my defense, every tackle I made on them was a perfectly legal one, if not a little ruthless.
But that was my point, dammit.
I was too aggravated to take it back a notch on boys who weren't anywhere near my level of playing.
Boys was the appropriate word in this instance.
These were boys.
I played with men.
I often wondered what the point was in playing on the school team.
It didn’t do shite for me.
Club level was basic enough but school boy rugby was a fucking waste of my time.
Especially this school.
Today was the first day back after Christmas break, but the school team had been training since September.
Four months.
Four fucking months and we looked more disorganized than ever.
For the millionth time in the past six years, I found myself resenting my parents' move.
Had we stayed in Dublin, I would be playing on a quality team with quality players and making some actual goddamn progression.
But no, instead I was here, in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, picking up the slack for a less than adept trainer and busting my bollocks to keep our side in sights of the qualifiers.
We won the league cup last year because we had a solid team with the ability to actually play decent fucking rugby.
With the absence of several players from last year's squad, who were now gone on to college, my agitation and concern for our chances this year was growing by the minute.
I wasn’t the only one who felt like this, either.
There were six or seven exceptional players left in this school who were good enough for the division we were playing in, and that was the problem.
We needed a bench of twenty-three decent players to excel in this league.
Not half a dozen.
My best friend for example, Gerard Gibson - or Gibsie for short, was a prime example of exceptional.
He was, without a shadow of doubt, the best flanker I'd played with or against in this level of rugby and could easily move up the ranks with a little commitment and effort.
Unlike me, though, rugby wasn’t Gibsie's life.
Giving up parties and girlfriends for a few years was a small price to pay for a professional career in the sport. If he laid off the drink and cigarettes, he'd be phenomenal.
Gibs wasn’t quite so convinced though, choosing to spend quality training time fucking his way through the female population of Ballylaggin with a relish, and drinking until his liver and pancreas cried out in protest instead.
I thought it was a dreadful waste.
Another overthrown pass from Patrick Feely, our newest number 12 and my partner in midfield, caused me to lose my ever-loving shite right there in the middle of the pitch.
Yanking out my mouthguard, I flung it at him, socking him straight in the jaw.
"See that?" I roared. "It's called hitting the fucking target."
"Sorry, Cap," the center muttered, red-faced, addressing me by the on-pitch nickname I'd earned since becoming captain of the school team in fourth year and earning my first international cap the same year. "I'll do better."
I regretted my actions immediately.
Patrick was a decent lad and very good friend of mine.
Aside from Gibsie, Hughie Biggs and Patrick were my closest friends.
Gibs, Feely, and Hughie had already been in a tight circle at Scoil Eoin, an all-boys primary school, when I was injected into their class for the final year of primary.
Bonding over our shared love of rugby, we'd all remained good friends throughout secondary school, although we had paired off in the sense of best friends – with Hughie aligning himself with Patrick, and me with the gobshite himself.
Patrick was a quiet lad. He didn’t deserve my wrath, and the poor guy definitely didn’t deserve to have my spit-laced mouthguard launched at his head.
Dropping my head, I jogged over to him and clapped his shoulder, muttering my apologies.
See, this was exactly why I needed to be fed.
And maybe given an icepack for my dick.
Fill me up with enough meat and veg and I'd be a different person.
A tolerant person.
Polite even.
But my sole focus was currently on not passing out from hunger and pain, therefore I had no time for niceties.
We had a cup qualifier match later this week and unlike me, these lads had spent their free time being, well, teenagers.
Christmas break was a prime example.
I'd spent my time working like a maniac to get back to the pitch, having been out on injury, while these guys had spent their break eating and drinking the shite out of life.
I had no problem losing a match if we were genuinely the poorer side.
What I could not accept was losing due to lack of preparation and poor discipline.
School boys league or not.
That wasn’t fucking good enough in my book.
I was perturbed beyond all rationality when a girl strolled across the pitch - fucking strolled right through the training grounds.
Irritated, I glared at her, feeling a rage inside of me that bordered on manic.
This was how fucking bad this team was.
The other students didn’t even care that we were training.