http://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/sprinter-mcphillips-makes-cut-26219966.html Sprinter McPhillips makes cut Brendan Fanning Twitter EMAIL PUBLISHED 25/04/2004 | 00:11SHARE AT 8.45 on Friday morning an email came through from the Connacht Branch announcing that all but two of the current squad are signed up for next season. It was perfectly timed: a statement of intent that a team that has already cheated the executioner and thwarted big time opponents would be doing it all again next term. SHARE The signatories to this proclamation were listed in team order, so we had Matt Mostyn and Darren Yapp coming first and third on the sheet. Mostyn is an Aussie who played for Ireland at the 1999 World Cup; Yapp is an Englishman recovering from a career at a broken club and a busted knee. Both have found a productive home in the West of Ireland. And in between them - second on the list and first choice all season on the wing - is Conor McPhillips. He is Irish. And if it wasn't for Connacht he would have had to go abroad for a full time rugby career. You don't have to delve any deeper into the Connacht squad to appreciate the value of their existence. This is more than a society for the prevention of cruelty to players, a shelter for the broken down and discarded. It works on a variety of levels, and McPhillips's story should be translated into a code that accountants can understand. At 22 it's a bit early to consider what he might do when his professional career ends, but you would get long odds on it not involving rugby. Well, coaching to be specific. "I have a bit of a fascination with the technical side of the game," he says. "Forwards or backs, it doesn't matter. I think I'm a closet forward. I'd be an open side. Definitely." At 5'8" he would be from the groundhog school of flankers. McPhillips is one of those players who togs out a hell of a lot bigger than he looks in his civvies. Which is just as well, because when he walks into the foyer of the appointed hotel, with the beany hat pulled down over his head, he could pass for a schoolboy on the bounce from class. Two months ago this correspondent interviewed Lions legend Scott Gibbs and he was dressed in the same gear. They could have been father and son. There isn't much of McPhillips but what's there is all there. He is strong and compact and quick. Very quick. He first noticed this when at school in Templeogue College. Although his dad had played junior and senior cup rugby in Terenure, and for the senior club, Conor was happy to go where his pals were going. The game wouldn't be a huge deal there but he loved it nonetheless. And he was good at it. Soccer and GAA went out the window as soon as he picked up a rugby ball. "It was the physicality of it," he says. Small, and nuggety with it. So playing away on the rugby pitch he decided to test his speed without the ball and with the encouragement of his PE teacher Mick Glynn, a former Connacht player himself, he took off. It turned out he could sail over hurdles as quickly as he could escape the clutches of tacklers. 'I'd always dreamed of going to an Ivy League school on a scholarship for sprinting' Having picked up Leinster and West Leinster titles he took it more seriously and signed up with Dundrum South Dublin. As he got older it turned into five sessions a week between March and August. "It was perfect: the rugby and athletics seasons complemented each other. Most of the other guys were coming off Gaelic and soccer so it was pretty much a level playing field for everyone. No one had that much of an edge." And when the summer was over he threw himself back into the team game. For a middle order rugby school he achieved relative success: Templeogue won the inaugural Junior League with McPhillips at scrumhalf and were beaten in a cup semi-final by Blackrock. When he went across the road to St Mary's for two years on the under 20s he played in a JP Fanagan Cup final, losing again to 'Rock. He was good enough to make the Leinster under 21 squad, but Brian O'Riordan was in the way. At the tail end of the season he got a run for the province on the wing. He wouldn't be the first scrumhalf in history to have to shift out wide to get into the starting line-up, but in McPhillips's case it paid immediate dividends. The Ireland under 21s needed a winger and they settled on him. "I kind of figured out myself that that's where my future was," he says. "I actually preferred the notion of having more space even though I liked the idea of having the ball more in my hands at scrumhalf. Maybe knowing you're not going to have it much in your hands encourages you to come off your wing more often and go and look for it. It's that fear of not getting it for the whole match. It's happened, and it'll happen again." At least he can complain to his team-mates about the occasional isolation. In athletics there was nobody to fall back on. McPhillips had knocked it on the head soon after producing a personal best of 10.87secs in the 100m final of the National Athletic Championships. It was in Santry, August 1999, a couple of months after leaving school, and he was delighted just to have made the seniors' final, let alone produce a personal best. By then he knew it wasn't going any further. "I'd always hoped I could do both sports but at the back of my mind I knew it wasn't possible," he says. "You go through phases where you prefer one over the other depending on how they're going. I'd always dreamed of going to an Ivy League school on a scholarship for sprinting but it wasn't actually offered to me. It was just a fantasy almost. The only Irish guys who go over are middle distance athletes or higher. The Americans can churn out 10 or 15 guys in a state who can run faster than any Irishman. "And it's a lonely sport as well. I remember Matt Mostyn giving me a hard time recently that when he knew me as a young sprinter I was into my own thing and wasn't very social. I went away when I was only 18 (with Ireland) to the sevens World Cup and I hadn't experienced anything like that before. He jokes about it now - how serious I was - but that was purely because after years of sprinting, such an individual sport, you don't speak to your competitors and you're constantly doing your own thing. I've changed a fair bit." That transition started two years ago. He had drifted out of one course and into another - "I was winging it a small bit" - before he enquired about a YDO job with the IRFU. Having helped out coaching in both his old school and St Mary's it wasn't a quantum leap. Before he knew it, he was down in Naas, bringing tag rugby into primary schools. That extended into the local CBS where the club drew all its players, and they achieved great success, beating Newbridge in the Schools Junior Cup. "From a school playing their first year of rugby to beat somebody with the history of Newbridge was special - as you can imagine there was a bit of local rivalry for that one." His every waking moment was taken up with the game. And then he went at it full time. He was playing away in the AIL for St Mary's but there was no sign of Leinster showing any interest. Then a phone call last April from Connacht chief executive Gerry Kelly caught him cold. A week later he signed a one-year deal. Soon he would be enjoying the delights of the drive to Galway. McPhillips has done a tremendous job for Connacht. He is top try scorer in the Celtic League with 11. The one he picked up in the Parker Pen in Narbonne, however, was worth a number of those. That away win was one of the defining moments of Connacht's season. In a first half blitz they sickened the French and McPhillips finished his touchdown with blistering speed and accuracy. If you had seen him play for St Mary's in the AIL you wouldn't have run out of the ground screaming that this man deserved a contract. Yet he is a classic example of how effective the right players can be in the right environment. Full time training has enhanced his all round game, but for such a small unit it has been his defence that has impressed as much as his speed. Then Ugo Monye went through him for a painful score in the Stoop last Sunday. "I think we - and I - underestimated his ability to go through you as well as around you," he says. "I went in low and hard and he came in harder at me and I think size came out best. But it's not often you get the chance to put something like that right and I'm relishing the challenge on Sunday. Guys would never say you f**ked up but in my own mind I know I made a mistake and I'm not happy with that. I want to put that right. That's the way I am." There will be 6,000 fans, including a sizeable chunk of the McPhillips clan, willing him to do just that. It will be a test of Harlequins' professionalism to withstand the crowd. It is a test of Connacht's professionalism that they are in this competition at this stage of the season. McPhillips has played his part.