Robert Baloucoune: Who is Ireland’s ‘find’ of the Six Nations?

By his own admission, it’s been “a weird journey”. It’s certainly a road less travelled. It’s had stumbling blocks and twists and turns. At times it had seemed days like these were inevitable, yet it also appeared they might never happen. But now, finally and at 28, Robert Baloucoune’s Ireland career has taken off. An overnight sensation after six years, so to speak.

Andy Farrell always knew Baloucoune was a rare talent, first calling him into the Ireland squad as a development player for the 2020 Six Nations when he was a 22-year-old on an Ulster development contract.

He made his try-scoring Ireland debut against the USA in June 2021, added a second cap against Argentina the following November, and another two back-to-back caps in November 2022 before falling out of favour and, largely due to injuries, out of sight. Until this Six Nations.

Whereupon he was recalled against Italy and crowned a fine performance with a superbly taken try. He did likewise in Twickenham, with an even better all-round display, and will win his fourth successive cap against Scotland.

Simon Zebo, for one, agrees that the Ulster winger has been Ireland’s “find” of the tournament.

“I think for too long we’ve been probably lacking that X-factor and speed that other teams are using. We just needed something different on the wing and my goodness, he’s provided it.

“Andy Farrell deserves a lot of credit for putting him in and instilling him with the confidence to play with no fear. Taking on the likes of Henry Arundel on the outside, you can tell that the coach has given him freedom. I’m delighted he’s flourishing. He’s a great kid, great fella, great team member in any dressingroom.”

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It’s a great story too, especially when you talk to some of those whom he met on his rugby journey.

Baloucoune was born and reared in London to an Irish mum, Shirley (née Tilson) from Fermanagh, and dad Martial, who is from Senegal. Baloucoune’s paternal grandparents, Agnes, a teacher who had studied in Paris, and Martial snr, an engineer, were Catholics in a largely Muslim country and insisted their six sons and one daughter all pursued degrees.

Baloucoune’s father was apparently good enough at football to be offered a trial with a professional club, but his parents insisted he studied at university in Dakar. He dropped out after a year and followed his friend, Patrick, to London where he became a chef.

There he met Shirley. They married and had one child, Robert, who was born in August 1997. Baloucoune was reared in Tottenham and attended St Paul’s All Hallows Church of England primary school, which was across the road from the old White Hart Lane – but he didn’t support Spurs.

“No, he supports Arsenal, like his father,” his mum reveals with a chuckle.

Tragically, his father Martial died suddenly at 36 when Robert was six, leaving Shirley, a teacher in Haringey, to rear her son on her own. Baloucoune was a keen footballer and took part in athletics, and as Shirley had played netball and done athletics. “I wasn’t as quick as Robert,” she says, laughing – and placed great store in sport, sending her only child to St Thomas More Catholic School, renowned for its sporting tradition.

But when Shirley became unwell – and at the insistence of her brother Nigel – they relocated to the vacant family home in Wattle Bridge in southeast Fermanagh when Baloucoune was 11.

They moved to Enniskillen three years later, where Baloucoune went to Portora Royal School (now Enniskillen Royal Grammar School). He played football with Enniskillen Rangers and Gaelic football with Coa O’Dwyers before schoolfriends encouraged Baloucoune to try rugby at 15 in their Medallion (Junior) Cup year. In his third season, the Portora senior schools rugby team reached the final of the Bowl Cup, but when Baloucoune repeated his A levels in 2016-17 he was overage for the schools’ team.

His mum encouraged him to play for Enniskillen RFC, as did his friend, the team’s outhalf Adam Lendrum.

One of his coaches at school, Alastair Keys (now head coach at the club), recalls how the innately shy 19-year-old had to be cajoled into attending training sessions.

“It took him half a season, maybe, to commit to playing with the club, and it’s understandable, because he was playing with men. But you could see in training, he’d burn anyone. He was relaxed enough but, eventually, you couldn’t stop him.”

Ashley Finlay coached Baloucoune at school and played alongside him at Enniskillen RFC, where he was also backs coach.

“We threw the ball around a wee bit, and if you threw it to his side, you were guaranteed to make at least 50/60 metres. He’d sometimes go into his shell and I’d give him a dig at half time. ‘Robert, would you actually do something, as opposed to walking around.’ And then the next minute, he was under the posts. That’s how quickly he could change. If he wanted to play, he was phenomenal.”

It wasn’t just Baloucoune’s pace, it was his strength too. Keys says Baloucoune was one of the two hardest players he ever ran into.

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“We played Carrick, and they were a really tough side. Their number 8 broke down the lane, and Robert cut across, smashed him into touch, and the number 8 couldn’t continue playing. He loved his defence and he could hit. I was fullback and I barely had to make a tackle all year because Robert had already got there.”

Enniskillen reached the Ulster Towns Cup final and Finlay credits his further progress to James Topping, who was then working with the Ulster academy manager Kieran Campbell and coaching their underage sides as well as the Ireland men’s seven’s.

Now the IRFU’s national talent coach and head coach of the Women’s 7s team, Topping recalls: “Ulster 20s were struggling for players so we got Robert up from Enniskillen, because he played for the Ulster Under-19s at one stage and sort of drifted out again. But watching him in training, I said to Kieran: ‘Kieran, you should give this boy a contract.’

“We took him down to a game and he played really well. So we spoke to him and his mum, Shirley, afterwards because he was hell-bent on going to London to university.”

Topping and Campbell suggested Baloucoune would come into the Ulster academy but would be based in Dublin with the Ireland seven’s squad, spending the week based in the Sandymount Hotel.

“I sat down with him and asked him what he thought he was good at. And he said: ‘I really enjoy defending.’ And I’ve never heard any outside back say that to me in my life. I was a bit taken aback. He said: ‘I’ve got speed, I can get guys on the outside and get them into touch, and I’m happy to make chop tackles and then go for the ball as well.’ And that’s exactly what he does.

“Then the seven’s exposed him to a lot of good players and he managed it all really well.”

Injuries, short-term and long-term, have continually interrupted Baloucoune’s graph, notes Topping.

“But when he’s on the pitch he can win games, just his movement. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody in attack and defence, if he’s around a tackle or around a corner, who is so fast over that first metre. It makes a huge difference.”

The following season, 2018-19, was his second year, as such, in the Ulster academy and he scored six tries in 14 senior games, including one in a 26-22 Champions Cup win over Racing ’92.

After those first two Irish caps, he scored a memorable hat-trick in Ulster’s first leg 26-22 win against Toulouse in Le Stadium in April 2022. He was at full throttle and unplayable that day, and there were even gasps from the home crowd when Baloucoune was in possession.

Farrell would have brought him to New Zealand in 2022 but for a hip injury. After that subdued third cap against South Africa in November 2021, and despite a try a week later against Fiji, injuries and form would restrict him to just two tries in 15 games for Ulster in 2023-24, and just two games last season due to more hamstring issues.

“I’d say last year was probably my toughest year,” Baloucoune admitted in the week of the England game.

But all the while he has worked with both the Ulster and Irish physios and strength and conditioning teams, and he hit the ground running this season, scoring six tries in six games for Ulster ahead of this Six Nations run.

Shirley was in the Aviva for the Italy and Wales games, and was among the green army at Twickenham with an old friend and fellow teacher from her days in London, Linda Saar, who is now a converted fan of both rugby and Baloucoune.

Zebo, who is another member, adds: “A winger’s number one job is finishing. When Robert gets the ball, he has that threat, that he can finish from anywhere, which has such a massive knock-on effect. It makes a stark difference in how defensively teams set up.

“The best teams in the world have finishers on the edges. They don’t have hybrids or centres playing on the wing. In my opinion, it is a specialist position and finishing is criteria number one that needs to be ticked.”

Baloucoune is ticking that and plenty more.

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