It’s been a big week down at Ballymore, for the Queensland Reds and for Tom Lynagh! On Tuesday, I was lucky to get to watch the Reds train at their usual high intensity. I was very lucky to catch Tom Lynagh and find out he was free later in the day for an interview!
We had an awesome chat about many things, including his experience last year in the British-Irish Lions tour of Australia!
Tom was preparing to leave for the United States with the Australia A squad.
Since our interview though, sadly, it was revealed that Tom’s had another injury set-back and won’t be able to travel with the team. I know he will bounce back though and am wishing him a speedy recovery in time for the Reds tour of Japan and Italy later this year!
I first interviewed Tom back in 2022 when he was settling into Queensland as his home state. (You can read that conversation here!) Since then, he has broken into the Wallaby and played a key role during their battle with the British and Irish Lions last year. I especially enjoyed asking him about that experience.
I’ve decided to leave our interview unedited, even with the change in his availability for this weeks USA trip. Again, I believe he’ll bounce back! Us Queensland supporters are right behind you every step of the way Tom!
Thanks Tom for your time, especially in the middle of a busy day of training.
You’re very welcome.
Australia A is travelling to the United States soon, for two games against the USA! How excited are you about this trip? And what are you looking forward to the most about the experience?
Yeah, very excited about the trip. It's something I've been eyeing up for a lot of the year, just being injured for most of the season. This was one of my targets to try and get back for and be involved in. So, I’m very excited about it, especially travelling to Nashville and New Jersey. I’ve never been to Nashville before, so that's going to be a very cool experience!
But on the rugby side of things, again, it's going to be a very cool experience playing over there. One of my mates from school is actually playing for the American team, the Eagles, so it’ll be pretty cool to see him again and play against him. Plus I'll play with players that I haven't played with before from the other Super Rugby clubs and learn from different coaches as well, it’s all pretty valuable.
The Reds are then travelling to Japan for two weeks and then Italy for a couple of weeks. What have the Reds been working on in particular to prepare for the tour?
Yeah. We’ve got new coaches that we've been with for the last couple of months now. We had the games for Super Rugby AU which was, you know, all part of developing the new style of play that we want and the new direction that we want to head in. So we spent a couple of months preparing our game and developing it for this tour. So, we're all very excited to play and show what we can do. We pride ourselves in trying to express ourselves and not hold anything back.
That does lead me to my next question! I’m excited about our new coach Vern Cotter. What are some things that you’ve learned from him already since he came on board?
Yeah, Vern has a very different style to Les. Verns very old school and hard on you, but he's a very fair coach as well. So he'll be hard on you when he needs to be hard on you and then he'll give you your praises when you do something well. So he's got a really good balance to it.
Saying that, the style that he wants to play is very exciting. You know, throwing the ball around. As well as our other our other new coaches, Peter Hewat and Craig McGrath. They’re both very cool to have around as part of the program, to learn from as well.
The Super Rugby AU season featured some exciting rugby and I’m glad you successfully made a come-back. I’m also excited about the younger players coming through the ranks!
Who would you shout out as someone that’s been training hard and earned their their debut over the Super AU competition?
That's a great question. Um... Yeah, we had quite a few club guys come in and be part of the squad and play some good footy for us. They trained well before and earned their spot. Charlie Brosnan's a guy who's been around here at Ballymore for quite a while now and to get three starting opportunities and play some really good minutes in the second row was pretty good for him, I thought. We had guys like Jake Pappin come in and step up, playing at 12 and Josh Takai, who was in the Reds Academy, he played well in the 3 games, I thought.
Last year we had a team named the British and Irish Lions travel to Australia. I loved watching the whole tour - it was a great experience for all of us as supporters. What was your highlight of the tour and did it add to the fun, the fact that you grew up in England?
Yeah, definitely. It was a very special event to be a part of, I’m not going to be able to be part of it ever again in my career. It's a once in a lifetime event to be a part of. You gotta make the most of it and yeah, one thing I took away from it… Obviously, we won the 3rd game, which is pretty special. To be a part of a winning team against the British and Irish Lions. But for me, it was the 2nd game of the MCG. I'd never played in the MCG before and always watched Australian sports there, while I was growing up.
I've been to a few cricket matches there. So it was very cool, running out in the sold out MCG and playing against the British and Irish Lions in the middle there. Again, it was a pretty good game of rugby. Obviously, we didn't get the result, but to be a part of a game like that, it was very cool. I’ll never forget that for the rest of my life. But, growing up in England and always being the one rooting against the British and Irish Lions, that was something I always did growing up. So it was very cool. And playing against players that I've never played against before was another very cool thing. I watched Owen Farrell and Finn Russell growing up, they’re people I try and aspire to be like on the field. So it was very cool lining up against them. Do you like Owen Farrell?
Yeah, he’s definitely a great player. I’m glad we beat him in that last game though!
Since our first official catch-up in 2022, you’ve developed into a world class player and represented your country well. What have you loved most about your time here, since you made Australia your home, both on and off the field?
Australia's been very, very good to me since I've been here. I've absolutely loved living here in Brisbane. I like the people, I love the culture, I like everything about this place. I would love to live here post rugby, if I'm lucky enough to get the opportunity to do so.
I love Australia and the boys here at the Reds have made that even better. Starting out in quite a young squad where a lot of the guys are sort of similar ages and growing into the team that we are now, where we've got a lot of 50 and a lot of 100 cappers and a lot of guys with a lot of experience has been pretty special to be a part of, on a personal night. So yeah, I'm very glad I made the decision to move down to Australia and I’m happy to be here.
Here’s the question I missed during our first interview: what’s your favourite post-game feed?
They give us quite a few options in the changing rooms. Normally there's some pizza in there, some sushi rolls. Normally, I'm the last to get to them because the forwards have already eaten them. But I do like a pizza post game. Having Italian genes and me, I'm quite a big fan of pizza!
