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'I didn't know it was coming... my first reaction was to scream' - John Cooney on his Ireland axe

John Cooney's hopes of going to the World Cup with Ireland were dashed by a phone call from Joe Schmidt

John Cooney has lifted the lid on what it was like to be one of the five players so far cut from Joe Schmidt’s training squad for the World Cup.

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Ireland came into August working with 45 players, a figure that Schmidt must reduce to 31 by World Rugby’s September 8 deadline day for registering squads for the tournament finals in Japan.

Two were cut on August 5, Ultan Dillane and Rory Scannell being told their services were no longer needed, and the bad news then arrived for Cooney on August 11, the day after the warm-up win over Italy that he did not play in. 

It was only three days later, on August 14, that the IRFU publicly confirmed Cooney, Finlay Bealham and Mike Haley would not be travelling to Portugal for the warm-weather camp and the disappointment has festered with the 29-year-old scrum-half who has eight caps, four coming off the bench in the 2019 Six Nations.    

Speaking on the Coffee with Cave series on The Rugby Pod’s Patreon site, Cooney, who would have felt his ability to play both half-back positions would have earned him at least one Test match audition this month to show his worth, told Darren Cave: “To be honest I didn’t know it was coming. 

“I was actually watching the Gaelic football, the semi-final Tyrone were playing, and my phone was actually on silent. I went to look at my phone about 10 minutes after the game and saw I had a missed called from Joe, so straight away my first reaction was to scream. 

“I knew well I was going to be cut at that stage. It was a bit of a surprise because that week I had done fitness and gym all week because I wasn’t playing against Italy. In my head the week before I thought I could be dropped. 

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“I wasn’t so then I thought I might be playing England, so I kind of kept the head down and got to work that week. That way it was kind of pretty upsetting that I didn’t get to play a game but yeah, I think I knew well once I saw the phone call off him that was it. 

Ireland depth chart
Ireland’s RWC training squad depth chart

“I rang him back and he must have been on the phone to someone else so I had to wait about 15, 20 minutes for him to call me back. It was a bit of a limbo at that stage. Yeah, as you probably know yourself, once you get a phone call out of the blue you kind of know something is up.”

Having subbed for Conor Murray for the majority of this year’s Six Nations and scored a try against England following on from a first Test start last November versus the USA, Cooney felt he was in with a credible shot of challenging to go to the World Cup.

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However, his hopes were dashed without any game time following a tough pre-season training with Ireland. “Personally I would have liked to have played a lot more and there has now been two Italy games that I have been involved which I would have liked to have least gotten a start or at least off the bench the last day. 

“That is what hurt me the most, that I didn’t even get a chance. I don’t see why I didn’t even get a few minutes to come on even against Italy. I’m not sure why that is. Also, even against the USA I got a start and played average enough. 

“But you know that type of year where you are carrying a few little niggles and stuff, I remember my AC was at me, little hindrances that sometimes if you get one soft game you don’t get to make up for it. 

“Since then I thought I did quite well in the Six Nations, got to play four out of the five games. The year before my goal was to play in one of the games and I didn’t so to get four out of five the year after was huge for me.

“I thought I did quite well when I came on and obviously would have liked a bit longer, but I haven’t actually had a chance since then. In one way I’m pretty happy with how I went when I got my opportunity but then it doesn’t really do much for you when you don’t get another go.”

WATCH: The RugbyPass stadium guide to Yokohama where Ireland will kick off their World Cup campaign against Scotland on September 22 

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J
JW 30 minutes ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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