RUGBY: BILLY DARDIS INTERVIEW
Dardis still eyeing 2020 Olympics
By Daire Walsh
AS one Irish rugby team finalises their preparations for a global tournament in Japan, Naas’ Billy Dardis is hoping 2020 will see another one embarking on their own journey to East Asia.
Despite ultimately coming up short in a Rugby Europe Olympic qualifier at Colomiers last month, a third-place finish sealed a spot in next summer’s World Rugby Repechage for the Ireland Sevens squad.
Only the winner of the latter will progress to the Olympic Games in Tokyo, and Dardis – the captain of the team – acknowledged it was a disappointment to miss out on an automatic place.
“We obviously went over there [Colomiers] with the mentality that we’d either win or lose. Getting to the Olympics and getting that job done. Getting that boxed ticked this year would have been great, so we could have looked forward to it. There’s all the sort of added benefits, we could have ridden that wave for the whole year,” Dardis acknowledged.
“It would have made a difference marketing wise and motivation wise. At the same time, coming third meant we can get to the Olympic Repechage next year. We’ve another crack at it. Obviously we would have wanted to have qualified straight off, but being positive about it will really sharpen our minds and motivate us for the whole year.”
While it has now turned into an all-consuming goal, Dardis readily admits the Olympics wasn’t on his radar when he was growing up in south Kildare. Given it is now the main priority for the Sevens programme, the former Newbridge College student is prepared to tackle the Repechage with all his might.
“It’s not as if I’ve been working towards it my whole life, but it has just become everything in the last year or two. It would be great for Irish rugby to get a team at the Olympics. We’ll build into the year. Qualifying for the World Series was our main aim this year. Once we got that ticked off, we thought about the Olympics.
“We’ve still got a lot of rugby to play before we get to the Olympic qualifiers. We’re going to look at this year and each weekend on the World Series as a trial. A chance to stamp our mark against the teams that we’re going to be playing in that Olympic Repechage come June.”
Having featured in a number of tournaments as an invitational nation, Ireland finally claimed full World Series status as a result of their outstanding success at the Hong Kong 7s in April.
When you consider they were operating in Rugby Europe Division C as recently as 2015, this represents a remarkable leap forward for the Ireland Sevens programme.
Dubai will be the destination for Ireland’s debut as a core World Series side this December, with the hard work beginning in the next few weeks for Dardis and his team-mates.
“We’ve been building towards that. Qualifying for the World Series, it was everything for the Ireland Sevens programme for the last three or four years. It was incredible. All of us on the squad had never really had that moment. When we won it, it was just incredible. The celebrations went on for a week or two! It was just great to finally do it and get Irish rugby onto the World Series.
“We’ve had four invitational events and they’ve all gone really well. Starting off in December in Dubai as a core team will just be incredible. Hopefully getting to travel to all 10 destinations and the cities you go to are just incredible.
‘We start pre-season on 26 August. We’ll have a three, four week block. Then we’ll have our first pre-season tournament. We’re going to Chester for a tournament. England, USA, Argentina, France, they’ll all send very good teams for that. It’ll be a good hit out.”
Though Sevens will be Dardis’ principle focus for some time to come, he hasn’t ruled out a return to the 15s game in the not-too-distant future. He was released by Leinster in 2017 without making a single first-team appearance and this is something he’d eventually like to put right.
“I do have ambitions of playing 15s again some day. Not getting a professional cap was something that still motivates me. I still have ambitions of playing it, but for the moment I’m pretty happy playing Sevens. It’s very enjoyable, it’s good fun. We get to see the world.
“It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we have ahead of us in the next year or so. I’m not really looking beyond the next year or so, rugby wise. We’ll see how it goes over the next year or two anyway. I won’t be ruling it out,” Dardis added.