Spend an hour in his company and the reasons for Fogarty’s popularity become obvious. Last Tuesday was a dirty old day at the dog track (aka The Sportsground, Galway) but the 28-year-old from Tipperary has a mischievous cackle that can lift the gloom.
He’s also a decent storyteller and a natural mimic, not to mention an accomplished operator in the middle of the front row. Based on his performance in the Churchill Cup and Ireland’s current injuries to hookers, if Eddie O’Sullivan had to pick a Test team tomorrow Fogarty would probably be in the 22.
Dip into his past, however, and you’ll see he wasn’t always an obvious candidate for a post of responsibility. There was the time during his Munster days when he and Donncha O’Callaghan turned up for training in a pantomime horse. Or the moment of unmitigated silliness that cost him an appearance in a Heineken Cup final.
It was in a hotel room in Belfast, a week before the 2002 final. Fogarty and O’Callaghan were in WWF mode, with a video running on the bout. “I had Donncha on my shoulder and was shouting, ‘From the top rung!’ Then I slipped and all his weight landed on my shoulder. Not good. I remember having to wake up Deccie (Declan Kidney) the following morning and tell him I had no movement in my shoulder. He was not happy.
“I don’t know if I was definitely sub for the final but I’d been on the bench for the semi. I would have got 10 or 11 minutes because Frankie (Sheahan) damaged his eye and had to come off. It would have been great but, how and ever, I’ve learnt from it. No more jumping around in rooms and acting the bollocks.”
Advertisement
O’Callaghan, who was groomsman at Fogarty’s wedding last month, clearly felt partly responsible for his friend’s misfortune. The following season, when Alan Gaffney took over as coach, he began a campaign: Give Fogs a Chance.
There was a chant, to the tune of the John Lennon song, Give Peace a Chance; there were T-shirts and a petition, even a website, www.givefogsachance.com. “I used to say, ‘Shut up, Donners, please. It’s embarrassing now.’”
It didn’t work, either. He was released at the end of the season, in a straight swap with Connacht’s Jerry Flannery. Being sent to Galway felt a bit like being sent to a labour camp.
“It was a kick in the hole for me, coming here,” he says. “I thought I was safe enough in Munster. In some ways, I didn’t see it coming but it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I was only fluting around. When I came up here I kinda said to myself, ‘It’s time to go to work. Let’s get busy here.’”
He had never lacked a work ethic, as such. After school in Rockwell College, there was a business studies and leisure management course in Waterford even though what he really wanted was full-time rugby. He moved to Cork, joined Con and took jobs that let him train in the afternoons. He wasn’t fussy. “I started working with Donncha’s brother, Emmett, who has a construction business, labouring to a plasterer,” he says. “I hated it, up at six and cycling into town, carrying buckets of muck. I’m reminded of it whenever I see all those Brazilians sitting on the side of the road in Gort, waiting to be picked up for work. They call it Little Brazil.
Advertisement
“I had a year and a half working in s*** jobs and training my arse off hoping something might come from it. I’d played Irish Schools and under-21s so I reckoned there was some chance. When I got a part-time contract off Deccie, I was over the moon.
“I was eager at first but the second or third year I could have been more focused, I suppose. It was the novelty of pro rugby. When you come in as a 20-year-old the whole thing kind of blows you away a small bit. Maybe I was looking around instead of looking ahead of me. It’s really annoying now considering what I had to do to get the contract.” Not that moving to Galway had an entirely sedative effect. He still found himself being fined more often than most other players — according to ex-team manager John Fallon, they were going to name a temporary stand in the Sportsground the Fogarty Stand because he’d paid for most of it. His offences were fairly petty, such as leaving on his mobile in team meetings. And once he was given regular starts, everything seemed to slot into place.
He got 28 of those last season and before long the excellence of his lineout throwing and general workrate attracted interest from outside, especially from Leicester and Leinster. A decent showing in A internationals against France and England helped his cause further and suddenly he found himself in the position of having to tell Sinead they’d have to postpone their June wedding, he’d been picked in the Churchill Cup squad for San Francisco and Edmonton. “We lost the deposit on the hotel — or rather, Sinead’s dad did,” he laughs. “But she was very good about everything. She knew how much it meant to me.”
It was his first proper tour since an Irish Schools trip to Australia in 1996. The highlights included Alcatraz and seeing the record-breaking, if discredited, Barry Bonds hit a home run for the Giants. Oh yes, and beating England for the second time in a few months. Fogarty was even credited with scoring a try in the 30-27 win in Edmonton.
“That was actually Ronnie McCormack who got over but I was last up and I was going, ‘Yes!’ and thumping the ground, so that may have had something to do with it,” he says. “The English lads were gutted. They thought they’d won it with a try a few minutes earlier and were running around, doing Klinsmanns and everything. Ridiculous stuff. Then they were sickened in injury time. And it was by a point or two. If only we could have won by half a point.”
Advertisement
It’s easy to get him going. Just mention that a commentator on Sky Sports called him Denis, actually his 23-year-old brother, also a hooker, and now with Munster. Or ask if the exploits of Flannery, the man who replaced him at that province, have inspired him. “I don’t now if inspired is the word,” he says, half-laughing, half biting his lip. “But you’d certainly take a lot out of what he has achieved.
It’s a lesson to everyone who has had to bide their time. I get on with him but . . . Hookers are very . . . You know yourself.”
For the moment, he is thinking mainly in the collective. This captaincy lark is all new to him, after all. He’s fortunate that there is a general optimism in Connacht, even though they finishing second last of the Celtic League in May.
For one thing, there has been little player movement in or out compared with previous seasons, which is both comforting and helps from a technical point of view. Then there is the odd fixture schedule for September and October, which sees Connacht play seven consecutive games at home on Friday nights under their new floodlights. “If we can get a bit of momentum, that should help bring people in the gates,” says Fogarty. Friday’s 49-0 whupping of Rotherham was a great start.
Their other reason for optimism is their choice of captain. At a pre-training meeting last Tuesday morning, he noticed players looking out at the miserable conditions and sensed a certain lack of enthusiasm. “Come on, lads,” he said. “When we’re on, we’re on”. His own switch has been flicked up and down often enough. Right now, he’s most definitely on.