NAAS RUGBY: PETER OSBORNE INTERVIEW
Record breaker Osborne looking for Naas to kick on next season
By Daire Walsh
WHEN Naas retained their Ulster Bank League Division 1B status with a comprehensive triumph against Dolphin on 14 April, it proved to be a particularly memorable day for full-back Peter Osborne.
By registering 33 points over the course of the contest, the former Newbridge College student set a new club scoring record. With a hat-trick of tries supplementing his 18-point haul off the kicking tee, Osborne ensured that Johne Murphy’s men ended their recent campaign in fine style.
However, given their precarious position in the table at the time, Osborne acknowledged a victory by any margin was always likely to suffice.
“I didn’t really take notice of it [the record] to be honest. It was a nice way to finish off. It was a must-win game, so we would have taken a 3-0 victory at the start of the day. Just because we didn’t want to depend on other results. We wanted to get the job done ourselves. It was nice to finish off on a high,” Osborne explained.
“It’s a team effort, as it is all throughout the year. I think we used 35 or 40 players on the senior team throughout the year, so it was a squad effort to get it over the line and to stay in the division.”
Following their impressive journey to the second-tier play-offs in 2016/17, the season just gone produced mixed results for the Forenaughts outfit. With seven wins and one draw from 18 outings, Naas finished sixth in the league standings – 14 points outside of the top-four.
Crucially, wins over UCC and the aforementioned Dolphin kept them afloat, giving Osborne plenty of cause for optimism as the side moves forward.
“We finished second last year and we were unlucky in a play-off game. Okay, we finished sixth this year, but things didn’t go our way. We had a few injuries, so hopefully we can re-group and get a real strong squad for next year and make a push even for the play-offs.
“Once you’re in the play-offs, anything can happen. Looking at UCC, they crept into fourth place the last game of the season and then they won the play-off. We certainly have high hopes. The goal would be to reach the play-offs and who knows after that. It can go any way. Looking forward to it.”
While Osborne regularly lines out alongside two former professional stars – player-coach Murphy and Fionn Carr – he is well-acquainted with a current provincial operator.
It was during his time with the Naas U7s that Osborne first came into contact with Connacht flanker James Connolly and they have been close friends ever since.
“Played with James in Naas all the way up and then Newbridge [College] he was on our team as well. It’s great to see him do so well in Connacht and getting a good run. He’s been unlucky this year with one or two injuries, but hopefully next year he can get stuck into it and get on a good run.
“He’s a very, very talented player and he’s played one or two matches with us this year. Hopefully he can do the same next year, because he has Naas down as his club now.”
Connolly’s team-mate in the West, Craig Ronaldson, is another player to re-connect with Naas as a consequence of Galwegians being relegated to Division 2A for the beginning of this term. Though the Ballymore Eustace native secured a professional contract on the back of his outstanding displays for Lansdowne in the All-Ireland league, Osborne doesn’t see himself going down that particular route.
“I think it’s something you need to probably look at when you’re in your late teens or early 20s, to get a spot in an Academy. I think this stage of my life now, even though I’m only 25, it’d be hard to make the jump to professional. I’m really enjoying this standard of rugby and it nearly is semi-professional.
Indeed, despite the current rigours of his day job, Osborne’s insatiable appetite for the game remains intact.
“At the moment I’ve got a job in Mullingar, from about last October. It’s going pretty well. It’s just trying to get used to the commute and I’m sort of gone from the house seven until seven. Tuesdays and Thursdays, we’ve training at 7.30.
“Trying to get used to that sometimes can be tough, but if I wasn’t enjoying rugby, I wouldn’t be playing it. I do it for the pure love of the game. It’s something that I’ll always look back and say ‘if I ever gave it up, I’d regret it’. I’ll play for as long as I can,” Osborne added.