{"id":554550,"date":"2026-06-26T03:02:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T03:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/554550\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T03:02:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T03:02:19","slug":"rocky-kenneally-meet-the-blackrock-boarder-playing-rugby-for-spain-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/554550\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocky Kenneally: Meet the Blackrock boarder playing rugby for Spain \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rocky Kenneally found himself at a Leinster summer camp in King\u2019s Hospital. It was a present from his Irish grandmother. Kenneally lived in Marbella, so perhaps part of granny\u2019s incentive was to get something that required spending time in these parts. Four years on, he ended up staying a lot longer than anyone planned. <\/p>\n

Coming in at 6ft 7in these days, Kenneally wasn\u2019t that tall back then, but he still attracted attention. Joey Carbery<\/a>\u2019s father was involved in the camp and asked Kenneally where he would be playing Junior Cup rugby that season. <\/p>\n

Come again?<\/p>\n

Rocky hadn\u2019t a Scooby-Doo. Despite his Irish surname, schools rugby culture did not extend to the south coast of Spain. Born near Cambridge in the UK, Kenneally moved to Marbella when he was just a year old. <\/p>\n

He is bilingual and speaks English with a mixed lilt, the byproduct of an English mother, Irish father and years spent boarding at Blackrock College<\/a>. \u201cEveryone in Ireland calls it an English accent and everyone in England calls it an Irish accent,\u201d says Kenneally, laughing. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t used to it.\u201d Presumably, his Spanish sounds more, well, Spanish.<\/p>\n

The conversation with Carbery put Blackrock, Joey\u2019s alma mater, on Kenneally\u2019s radar. He fancied the idea of boarding. The rugby was appealing too. Four years on, a few months after appearing in the Leinster Senior Cup<\/a> final, Kenneally has been selected for the World Rugby Under-20 Championship. Only not with Ireland, but Spain. <\/p>\n

He first played with Marbella Rugby Club, but living in the Irish schools system accelerated his development. A secondrow who isn\u2019t allowed to slide into the backrow because he\u2019s \u201ctoo tall\u201d (Kenneally\u2019s own words), he weighs in at 106kg and has plenty of time to fill out. He only played twice off the bench in this year\u2019s Senior Cup but still has another year to go, having just finished fifth year. Aged 18, he says he\u2019s also eligible for another two years of U20 rugby. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bit of a culture shock, but I liked it,\u201d he says of moving to Blackrock. \u201cI started off playing in the U14s. It wasn\u2019t as demanding as Junior Cup or Senior Cup but it was still gym in the morning and stuff like that. After the first year I got used to it and it\u2019s been my routine for the last few years. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to go to boarding school for studies as well. I just love boarding school, it\u2019s the best thing that ever happened to me. I call it as a nine-month sleepover with all my friends.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Blackrock’sBlackrock\u2019s Rocky Kenneally celebrates a win over Cistercian College Roscrea in the Schools Junior Cup in 2024. Photograph: Nick Elliott\/Inpho<\/p>\n

If the Irish system improved his rugby ability, it also helped to get spotted by Spain. Taking advantage of transition year, Kenneally found work experience opportunities back home in Marbella closer to his family. May as well play some club rugby while there. When he lined out in the Spanish championships, it piqued the interest of the national scouts. Contact details were exchanged. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t hear from them for five, six months,\u201d he says. \u201cBut then they said we\u2019d like you to come to a camp back in October to prepare for U18 European Championship. First and second in the Euros got through to the U18 Six Nations. They won it in October so I was able to go to this year\u2019s Six Nations in Vichy.\u201d Spain lost to Italy and Ireland at the U18s competition but ended by beating Wales by a solitary point. <\/p>\n

Progression from there wasn\u2019t linear. Kenneally was initially dropped when Spain assembled their U20 group for this World Cup. He is two years young for the age group. Still, they could only overlook a 6ft 7in secondrow for so long. \u201cI didn\u2019t join them until two weeks ago,\u201d says Kenneally. \u201cThey were swapping people in and out to have a look at who was going to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kenneally isn\u2019t the first Irish interest to play for Spain at this level. Last year, Leitrim native Liam McNamee featured. \u201cMy Blackrock roommate plays for Czech 18s,\u201d Kenneally adds. \u201cMy best friend also plays for the Swiss Under-18s sevens.\u201d Clearly, nations with smaller talent pools are more than happy to take advantage of the rugby education qualified players receive on these shores. <\/p>\n

Which creates options for those who are good enough. It\u2019s difficult to say where someone like Kenneally goes from here. Despite the international recognition, we haven\u2019t seen much of him at Senior Cup level. There has been no contact from the IRFU, for whom Kenneally qualifies alongside England and Spain. In many ways, what happens next depends on who comes knocking. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn Spain, there isn\u2019t a pathway as such, but as soon as you turn 18, you go and play for a senior club, be that first division, second, third,\u201d he explains. \u201cLots of people go to France and play as well. It\u2019s just playing adult rugby at the age of 18.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got no specific plan in place, the main thing for me is enjoying my rugby because when people fall out of love with the sport, that\u2019s what ruins it for them. I\u2019ve got no plan for the future, but I\u2019ll go for whatever pathway is best to go pro.\u201d <\/p>\n

First up, Spain face Australia on Saturday in Georgia. Then France, the Apollo Creed of U20s rugby. Last up in the pool stages is Fiji. <\/p>\n

A tall order for someone still in school, perhaps. Sure he wouldn\u2019t be the first man named Rocky to enjoy being the underdog. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rocky Kenneally found himself at a Leinster summer camp in King\u2019s Hospital. It was a present from his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[78003,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,40691,139797,11,12,178204,15,16,5,7,8,34131],"class_list":["post-554550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-blackrock-college","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irfu","tag-joey-carbery","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-leinster-schools-senior-cup","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world-rugby"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116814188199434891","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554550","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=554550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}