Ireland are fighting the tide of an ageing squad this Six Nations but are well stocked with this world-class, try-hungry hooker
I am on the phone with Mike Ruddock when a message pings on my phone. Dan Sheehan is free to chat now. It feels rude to interrupt a legend of Welsh and Irish rugby but Ruddock is understanding, write Pat McCarry.
“Give Dan my best,” says Ruddock. “He’s another one of my old boys from Lansdowne.” Promising to call back, I ask if there is any message he wants me to run by Sheehan. “Tell Dan that I love him but, don’t take it personally, I love the scrum even more. He’ll get a laugh out of that.”
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Ruddock is proved right as I pass on his message. “Mike pointed out to the pitches at Lansdowne,” Sheehan recalls, “and asked, ‘What do you see?’ I replied, ‘A pitch’, then, ‘A river’, and Mike said, ‘No, there’s a scrum machine!’” Ruddock embellishes the tale later. “‘Son,’ I said, ‘all you should be looking at is that scrum machine because that’s where you’re going to spend the rest of your season!’
“Dan had that X-factor and could score tries,” Ruddock adds. “He was big, strong and very powerful, particularly close to the line – you’d always back him to come away with a try. I loved that he was comfortable in those wider channels. I hadn’t coached many hookers who could jump and take a cross-field kick, then land, do a sidestep and offload or score himself. He had the confidence to stay in the wider channels and not just be a typical hooker working off nine or ten. He was happy to test himself out wide.”
Dan Sheehan: ‘It was nice for me to finish out with the family club’
Ireland’s hooker Dan Sheehan celebrates scoring their first try during the Autumn Nations Series (Getty Images)
Sheehan’s sporting journey began at Bective Rangers at the age of five, and a minis set-up that had future team-mates Johnny Sexton and Rónan Kelleher on the books. Around that time, due to an aunt that worked in marketing, he was rolled out with a spiky Jonah Lomu haircut beside Jonah Lomu himself for publicity photos.
The All Blacks legend posed for snaps with a young Sheehan perched on his left shoulder. Sheehan was hooked on rugby after that. He moved with his family to Bucharest for three years but returned when he and brother Bobby were set for secondary school. The brothers boarded at Clongowes Wood College, with Dan going from the seniors’ second squad to helping the main team to a Leinster Schools Cup semi-final in his last year there.
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“After school I was playing with Trinity College,” he says, “and developing under the likes of Tony Smeeth and Hugh Maguire, but the opportunity came up to play with Lansdowne and work with Mike. My uncle, Derry Shaw, was set to be club president, so me coming over for that (2019-20) season worked out well. It was nice for me to finish out with the family club.”
‘I had the two Lions hookers there’
Ruddock coached Swansea, Leinster and Newport before leading Wales to a Grand Slam in 2004. He returned to Ireland to coach their U20s before getting involved with Lansdowne. “I coached Dan and Rónan Kelleher,” he notes.
“I had the two Lions hookers there. Where I thought I could help those boys was in the darker arts, particularly in the scrum, lineouts and mauls. That’s something they don’t always get exposed to on their way through the schools and academies. I was able to deal with stuff like how to deal with an opposition tighthead when he’s cutting across and boring down on a hooker.
“There was also the fact Dan was 6ft 3in and a big number of kgs. I didn’t want him striking for the ball too much. I wanted him staying squarer, loading up his legs and back for pushing and, in the act of pushing, to move his foot out to strike, rather than swinging to strike as you’d lose his power. It was changing his focus on a few things.”
Dan Sheehan and captain Jack Conan of Leinster celebrate with the URC trophy (Getty Images)
Sheehan made his Leinster debut in 2020 and lined up for Ireland a year later. Paul O’Connell came in as Ireland’s forwards coach around that time. “Dan is very coachable,” he explains.
“Show him something on a video and he understands it straightaway and is almost able to do it straightaway. He has a lovely temperament as well. Lineouts can be a funny place where people blame the hooker a lot. He doesn’t let a mistake, by him or the team, bother him when it comes to the lineout. He just moves on to the next thing.
“He has real intent and physicality in everything he does. He’s a big, solid hooker. That adds a lot of weight to what we do, so he’s been excellent.”
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Sheehan establishes himself as Ireland’s main man
An injury to Kelleher during the 2022 Six Nations opened the door for Sheehan to establish himself as Ireland’s main man. He started all three Tests as Andy Farrell’s side recorded an historic series win in New Zealand. The following season saw him score four tries in one game against Benetton and help Ireland bag a Grand Slam.
His try-scoring nous has seen him become the top-scoring forward in Six Nations history. He went into last year’s championship on eight tries, one behind Jamie Heaslip and Imanol Harinordoquy, only to add five more to his tally.
“Myself and James Lowe often joke with each other about who can stand on the wing longer,” he says. “It’s just part of the way the game has gone. I’ve had to mould my physique and whatever attributes I have to keep that attacking mindset. It helps, though, that I always loved getting my hands on the ball. Saying that, a lot of my tries are me hanging on the back of mauls and just getting over the try-line to crash down.”
An official looks on as Scotland’s loosehead prop Pierre Schoeman and Ireland’s hooker Dan Sheehan tussle across an advertising hoarding (Getty Images)
2023 also saw Sheehan’s first inclusion in the World Rugby ‘Dream Team’ and a first World Cup appearance, but there have been low points too, notably that year’s Champions Cup final defeat to La Rochelle at the Aviva Stadium and last season’s semi-final exit to Northampton. That latter setback meant the focus switched to winning a URC crown with Leinster. It helped that 11 Leinster players (rising to 14) would be named in the British & Irish Lions squad for the Australia tour.
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As Jake White took his Bulls team to Dublin for the Grand Final, Leinster were overdue producing when it really counted. “Winning the URC was a big monkey off our back,” Sheehan admits. “We had four years with Leinster where we were getting to semi-finals and finals and coming up short. So to win that Grand Final against the Bulls was big.”
Sheehan chased that high down under with the Lions. He was named captain for the first tour game on Australian soil against Western Force and scored after only 90 seconds. The hooker scored tries in each of the first two Tests as a series victory was clinched in Melbourne.
“For so many of us, being involved in that Lions squad, going into a tough series and getting over the line, it was a big boost. I never really looked into it too much or felt too much pressure off the back of finals losses. I could strip it back to, ‘That’s just sport. You win some, you lose some. There’s tight margins and that’s why so many people watch it’.”
Asked about the bonds he forged with old (and soon to be renewed) foes in Australia, Sheehan says, “there wasn’t a bad fella on that tour. It was brilliant to see how all the nations came together. It’s an intense environment. You’re living with these fellas in different hotels for two months and seeing them every day. It’s amazing how close you can get with these guys you’ve grown up watching almost in hatred. Then you realise that they all share a similar dream as you – growing up wanting to represent your country and do your family proud.
“It was great making bonds with those lads, coming together to do something special and sharing some stories and beers with them.”
Sheehan’s Lions selection
Lions selection was something Sheehan feared might elude him when he suffered an ACL injury on Ireland’s tour to South Africa the previous summer. But he returned to Ireland colours with a try in a 27-22 win over England last February. Jack Conan, who was part of the victorious Lions squad, believes Sheehan has seamlessly taken on a more senior role in the Ireland squad.
“Dan is a very relaxed character and takes it all in his stride. He’s a natural leader and speaks very well, and comfortably, in front of the group.
“But I think it’s more about his actions. He’s one of the best players in the world. There’s not many hookers like him and the way he plays; how explosive and dynamic he is. His leadership qualities have come on leaps and bounds in the last year, from captaining us against Wales in the Six Nations to captaining the Lions. He is massively respected within the squad.”
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The Autumn Nations Series saw Malcolm Marx settle the ‘world’s best hooker’ debate, for 2025 at least. Sheehan was part of an Irish pack that got rumbled in the scrum by a Springbok eight that had previously dismantled the French.
Sheehan and Co will be well aware that the likes of France and England would have watched that South Africa game closely leading into the Six Nations. Still, this season’s big prizes have yet to be handed out. In October, Sheehan’s younger brother made his Leinster debut in a league win over Zebre.
“Bobby has been around rugby for years,” says Sheehan. “He was playing with UCD for a while and might start picking up some more caps for Leinster.
“A big part of our family’s identity is rugby and if we can give everyone a few big days out, it’s all good. It’s as important to them as it is to me. They’ve been travelling to my games for years and get the same from it, almost, as I would. “They are my main reason for doing what I do. They are my ‘why’.”
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