Once the door closes in the study room in the Berkeley Library, Jack Kelly means business. It’s not immediately obvious that he’s a man who splits his time between leading his country on the playing field and law lectures in the Arts Block, but when he commits to something you can sense the full force of his attentive, vibrant personality. Taking time out of his busy schedule – playing for Trinity’s rugby club, Dublin University Football Club (DUFC), training with Leinster’s academy side and captaining the Irish Under-20 squad – Kelly discusses his 6am starts in the gym in Donnybrook as if it were second nature to him. It’s certainly not the start to the day that most first-year law students enjoy. The last few weeks have been both hectic and exciting for Kelly, as the Irish Under-20 squad are currently in Monaghan at a “training camp with the seniors for a few days”. Smiling, Kelly explains he’s trained with the seniors before, “once before with them as a squad’’ and once by himself and a few squadmates.
For Kelly, rugby has always been ingrained in him. By his own admission he was “never really any use” at soccer and instead was encouraged to pursue rugby by his uncle and father. Attending St Michael’s, a strong rugby school in Dublin, only furthered the professionalism he approaches the game with. He describes how his rigorous routine revolves around spending most of his mid-week mornings in the gym, before getting into college in the afternoon, ahead of more training with Trinity on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. He was offered an academy contract by Leinster before Christmas, so rugby is effectively becoming full-time for him. How does training balance with college, at least as most students experience it? “They do try and accommodate your needs, but it does mean that training often starts at 7am. If I started at 9am I wouldn’t be finished until 2pm, so most of the day would be gone.” The sense is that he wants to take part in college life, as a release from sport, especially during breaks from intense training camps with the Ireland squad.
Kelly sits up and squares his shoulders when we move on to talk about the Ireland Under-20 squad, which he is honoured to lead. Training with Ireland “kicked off in September” and the last month has involved training five mornings a week, split between Donnybrook and the National Sports Centre in Abbotstown. “You wake up tired but once you get into it…it’s good craic. That’s where I want to be anyway.”
Receiving a sports scholarship in Trinity has helped him get time off, but he still faces a tough balancing act. With the Six Nations, “if we are playing a team at home we are at camp Monday and Tuesday and can’t leave at all” which means college readings fall by the wayside.
I’m not going to just retire at 33 and live out the rest of my life, I’m going to have to go to work, so yeah that’s why I’m doing law
Interestingly for an elite athlete, Kelly is very clear that rugby was not a factor when applying for Trinity. “The link with rugby didn’t really factor into my decision. I wanted to come here for college, and that was kind of it.” But why a degree in law? “Yeah, no one in my family is a lawyer…but I can’t really throw all my eggs in one basket, and I know if rugby doesn’t work out, I still have a very good degree to fall back on.” In a demonstration of maturity beyond his years, he cites the need for a career, hopefully after a successful stint at rugby: “I’m not going to just retire at 33 and live out the rest of my life, I’m going to have to go to work, so yeah that’s why I’m doing law.” He adds that “no one ever really has a good idea of what they want to do” after they play rugby at a high level. Maybe in an academic sense, Kelly is still finding his way, but on the pitch he certainly knows what he wants. After an opening weekend win in the Six Nations against Scotland 20-19, followed by a tight 27-26 victory against Italy, naturally the issue of his injuries and the significance of two one-pointers victories flow into conversation.
He reluctantly describes the opening match against Scotland as a “dogfight”. His verdict so far is that “we won, but we didn’t win well. Obviously it’s competitive, and Scotland and Italy are good sides as well”. Why did it come so close on both occasions, though? “We only won by one point in both games because we were a bit sloppy ourselves, and let them have more of a contest than we should have.” He adds that they don’t want to rely only on grit and mental strength “as we need to be more clinical and let the score convey our dominance”.
The best advice I ever got about captaining a side was to make sure you play well yourself and then worry about whatever comes after that
The victory against Scotland came at a cost as well, as Kelly was forced offield with an injury midway through the first half, with what turned out to be a grade-two AC shoulder joint injury. It was first injured at the start of the match and was compounded when he competed for a high ball. When pushed as to when he reveals: “It looks like I’m not back until Wales.” The squad will break for a week before taking on Wales, a match his rehabilitation is aimed towards: “Yeah, the week off before Wales looks like my aim. A nice re-entry into rugby.Every game you come up against in the Six Nations is gonna be tough, so every game you have to put everything into it.”
Throughout the interview, Kelly comes across as both calm and insightful. He has captained teams right up to, and including, the Irish Under-20 squad this year, which is no surprise given the cool presence he maintains. Interestingly, he leads either from fullback or 13, positions that are not exactly in the thick of the action, so he takes a more thoughtful approach to the captaincy. His calm and determined attitude keeps everyone level-headed in high pressure, and, in his eyes, there are “so many leaders on the team anyway”, making his role “a lot easier”. He explains that captaining from full back is “tough” logistically “because if there is a penalty and you want to talk to the ref you could be 40 metres away”. But he describes that playing his own game is just as important: “The messages wouldn’t always come to me and the messages wouldn’t always come through me.” When asked if he truly enjoys the added pressure of being captain, he answers: “The best advice I ever got about captaining a side was to make sure you play well yourself and then worry about whatever comes after that…even though you’re captain you’re still just player on the team so if the team plays well and you win you’re sorted.”
In the Scotland match, his first taste of international rugby, the difference in class was apparent. “In school it would have been a lot easier as chances appear and you take advantage of them. But you’re not gonna get that gap at international level unless you make it. It’s a massive step up. You’re playing with the best players in the country.” Kelly describes how playing for Trinity in the All Ireland League is the perfect stepping stone between the two levels. He feels that it has added high value to his game and is similar, if not more intense, than British and Irish (BNI) cup games with the Leinster A team. “The skills at this level would be better, just because people have time to develop them and the AIL [All Ireland League] is certainly a big step up. So I wouldn’t see myself playing if I wasn’t playing in AIL, the league definitely needs to be there.This is a good place to get used to the physicality and the added tempo of the senior game, coming from schools rugby. The AIL has a lot of very good players in it as well, so you’re tested every week.”
You can sense that this is the path he truly wants to pursue, and that the hard yards, long hours on the pitch and the “waking up to snapchat stories at 6am from people out the night before” is a challenge that doesn’t faze him
It seems that rugby is the right fit for Kelly, and when asked what the foreseeable future might hold, he highlights the need to take the Six Nations first, before looking towards a potential Under-20 World Cup in Georgia in May and June. “Georgia you wouldn’t really have the opportunity to go, apart from playing rugby so it it will be interesting, and obviously hot in May. Once we get the Six Nations block out of the way we’ll start thinking about the World Cup, as if you start thinking ahead you’ll lose the run of it.”
Does Kelly feel he has the necessary skills to balance both study, life and the dream of professional rugby? He cites his teammate Colm Hogan, a second-year law and French student, as an example of there being no excuses. “He would be training with the Munster Academy and starting for the Irish Under-20 squad at the moment, he has an Erasmus to factor in as well, so he’s in an even more complicated situation than I am.” Such a situation, though, has led him to touching shoulders with both the Leinster and Irish senior players at times, one experience standing out to Kelly in particular.
“There was one occasion where myself and one other teammate were filling in to provide opposition for the Irish senior team, before they went off to play the All Blacks last November, in Carton House.” He smiles, describing the experience as “pretty cool”, albeit one where “you make sure you want to call every ball and stick every pass”, and that he “wasn’t planning on doing anything special”. He laughs, stating “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t brain anything, you know?”, especially under the watchful eyes of Senior Coach Joe Schmidt.
Throughout the course of our conversation, you can sense that this is the path he truly wants to pursue, and that the hard yards, long hours on the pitch and the “waking up to snapchat stories at 6am from people out the night before” is a challenge that doesn’t faze him in the slightest. It is no surprise, then, that when asked what advice has stuck out to him most, he states that he would tell others to take everything in stages. “I don’t know if this is the best advice, but how I manage is, I take everything in blocks, so this Six Nations block, this block is rugby focused. Then, when the Six Nations finishes, I’ll be back to trying to get as much college in as I can.” When finally asked, then, if media work is part and parcel of the role of captaincy, he sits back and says how interviews were “kind of flung at me, I didn’t really prepare anything, I was just told, by the way, go talk to him now”. He can see the funny side of all the attention too: “It’s weird. I haven’t read any of them because I don’t really want to.” Instead, he explains, laughing, that his friends read them and give him their verdicts. Judging by his grounded, humble and hard-working character, it makes sense that he doesn’t read everything written about him. It’s obvious he’d rather do all his talking on the pitch.
