1
The text message that triggered Treadwell's Ireland renaissance
By PA
Ireland lock Kieran Treadwell has revealed that a pre-match text message from his fiancee helped trigger his international renaissance ahead of a potential first Test start for more than five years. The 27-year-old’s lengthy national team exile ended in February with a try-scoring cameo in the Guinness Six Nations win over Italy.
He has since remained in favour under Andy Farrell, coming off the bench in Saturday’s 19-16 victory over world champions South Africa following three substitute appearances in the 2-1 summer series success over the All Blacks.
With Ireland head coach Farrell expected to make changes for this weekend’s clash with Fiji, Treadwell is likely to be handed a long-awaited opportunity from the first whistle. The England-born Ulster player credits wife-to-be Beth with reigniting his love of rugby and, ultimately, sparking his Test comeback.
“When I first came in I was quite young, so when I didn’t get the call for the next camp it was quite tough to take for me because my focus was ‘I need to get picked’,” said Treadwell, who has nine Ireland caps.
“I used to put a lot of personal pressure on myself. I was very much outcome-based in what I did, whereas nowadays I really enjoy going through the process of getting better.
"It was actually my fiancee that said it. She would text before each of my games, ‘Good luck’ or whatever. Once she texted, ‘Go out and enjoy yourself’. And I remember looking at it and thinking, ‘Yeah, I will.’ That was the trigger for me. Obviously there is the pressure of a big occasion, but you have to remember to go out there and enjoy it and play the best rugby you can because you’ve been selected for a reason.”
Treadwell’s only Test start to date came against Japan in June 2017 during the tenure of Joe Schmidt. He won three caps in total that year but did not feature again for the country of his mother’s birth until returning with a bang against the Italians less than nine months ago.
The former England U20 international was the only member of Farrell’s squad to play in all five games on the tour of New Zealand, starting twice against the Maori All Blacks and coming off the bench in each of the three Tests.
He is targeting a trip to next year’s World Cup in France as he competes for a second-row spot with the likes of vice-captain James Ryan, Tadhg Beirne and provincial teammate Iain Henderson. “It was a bit unexpected to get that inclusion for the Six Nations,” said the Carshalton-born forward.
“Then I just thought to myself, ‘I have a taste for this. I’m not letting this go again. I’ve got to keep on performing’. I have always wanted to play at the highest level and that, to me, is the highest level, the World Cup. It’s massive.
“It’s obviously in the back of my mind, it’s a goal but I’m very much focused on the weekend and hopefully the rest will look after itself.”
Trending on RugbyPass
2
Stuart Lancaster 'wants out' of Racing 92 and eyeing Euro giants job
3
Henry Arundell lined up for early England homecoming
4
Government provides bleak assessment on the state of the Premiership
5
Latest Comments
Well that sux.
Go to commentsLike I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
Go to comments