{"id":389892,"date":"2026-03-17T16:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T16:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/389892\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T16:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T16:31:12","slug":"robert-baloucounes-rising-player-award-at-28-proves-its-never-too-late-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/389892\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Baloucoune\u2019s Rising Player award at 28 proves it\u2019s never too late \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there was an Irish theme to a vintage 2026 Six Nations<\/a> campaign, it is probably the emergence of new players in their mid- to late 20s, or even 30s, and especially with an Ulster<\/a> tinge. Perhaps it\u2019s fitting therefore that Robert Baloucoune<\/a> was formally named the tournament\u2019s Rising Player at the age of 28.<\/p>\n

But the irony wasn\u2019t lost on him. \u201cYeah, the award was a bit of a shock, to be honest; 28 and getting the rising star – I\u2019m getting slagged for it already. But I\u2019m grateful for it and at least people are seeing what I\u2019ve put out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baloucoune had not added to his fourth cap against Fiji in November 2022. Whereupon he has made four successive appearances in his debut Six Nations, scoring three tries and winning a Triple Crown.<\/p>\n

Such days have appeared a long way off, and among the several turning points in his career were being offered a place in the Irish Sevens squad by James Topping and also in the Ulster academy after coming through Enniskillen Royal Grammar School and Enniskillen RFC, where he coaches the backs part-time on a voluntary basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was meant to go to \u2018Uni\u2019 in England and that would have probably been the end of my rugby. I was in between London and Nottingham. It was a bit of a change. Sports management or something, just to go to Uni.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sevens segue was an invaluable staging post. There have since been stumbling blocks along the way, notably hamstring issues, but he\u2019s always possessed rare finishing ability, strong defence and aerial prowess.<\/p>\n

His try in the 43-21 win over Scotland had echoes of his brilliant finish against Italy. That came from Stuart McCloskey<\/a>\u2019s quarterback-style pass, whereas his finish from longer range last Saturday came from his Ulster team-mate\u2019s long bridge pass \u2013 akin to the scrum move which led to a try at Twickenham.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about it all week, trying to get the ball into space and taking on defenders. Stu\u2019s done it before as well where he\u2019s took that big long pass, so I knew that was coming, and trying to beat defenders, to get to the tryline, it\u2019s what I\u2019m good at, and what I try to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this, Baloucoune is given every encouragement to back himself.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Robert Baloucoune: Who is Ireland\u2019s \u2018find\u2019 of the Six Nations?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, everyone, Goody [Andrew Goodman], Johnny [Sexton], they\u2019re like, \u2018Get the ball in space, try and make things happen,\u2019 and I think you\u2019ve seen that over the course of the championship.<\/p>\n

As evidenced by his cool try assist for Tommy O\u2019Brien at Twickenham, and partly due to the attacking rugby being played at Ulster under Richie Murphy and Mark Sexton, Baloucoune is also working across the backline harder than he used to do. <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, definitely, and I think that\u2019s a confidence thing as well. The more you do it, the better you are at it, and I have to keep doing it in training and forcing myself off the wing. It was something that I wasn\u2019t comfortable with when I was younger and playing. I suppose you keep on learning and try to improve every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, it\u2019s never too late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If there was an Irish theme to a vintage 2026 Six Nations campaign, it is probably the emergence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,34132,11,12,15,16,5,159480,97580,96426,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-389892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-ireland-rugby","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-robert-baloucoune","23":"tag-scotland-rugby","24":"tag-six-nations","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116245475277139437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}