Emerging Leinster star having to take his medicine with demands on and off pitch

There is another doctor in the house at Leinster - Conor O Tighearnaigh that is.

He is following a trodden path too, Emmett Byrne, Felipe Contepomi and Josh Murphy for instance has alternated between blue jerseys and white coats.

Prop forward Byrne won nine Ireland caps between 2001 and 2003; Back/second-row Murphy is still playing with Connacht; Contepomi is current Argentina coach.

Second row O Tighearnaigh made his Leinster debut against the Vodacom Bulls in Loftus Versfeld Stadium in April 2023.

And brought things to something of a full circle when playing against Lions in Johannesburg last Saturday.

Last week’s appearance was his 12th for the province with the smart money on the 23 year-old doubling that figure - at least - this season.

That’s not least as he has rescheduled some of his medicinal timetable to fit in around his second-row duties.

"I'm still studying but I'm now doing it on a stretched out basis,” he explains ahead of this week’s encounter with Sharks.

“I did the first four years full whack, and then last year I took a leave of absence from medicine

“I've now returned this year and there's two years remaining for me and I'm spreading that over four years so I'm doing it on a kind of part-time basis at the moment.”

Four down, one off, two spread out, so four to go.

"It's tough. Thankfully UCD have been very helpful with me and they've been very accommodating and supportive.

"I'm on placement at the moment in Vincent's. In Leinster it'd be four days a week so for the placement, I have one full day on a Wednesday and then the rest of the days I make up my hours when I can.

"So if we have shorter days, I can go in the mornings early to Vincent's or in the afternoons after training and just try to make up the hours that I can and yeah, to put in the extra work kind of whenever I can.”

Travelling to South Africa for two rugby matches over two weeks can play havoc with timetable that’s for sure!

"It has to be kind of flexible, especially like for trips like. I'll be missing two weeks so I'll try to catch up as much online as I can and then when I get back to Dublin I'll have to probably put in a bit of extra work to catch up.

"So it's not a very black and white schedule but it's kind of make up the hours where I can.

"There's definitely lads who are doing studies but yeah, I think it's probably one of the more full-on ones.

"So yeah, it has its challenges but I'm enjoying it at the moment and yeah, hopefully I'll be able to keep on top of it now. It requires a bit of extra work alright.”

Rugby’s tough, medicine is tough albeit in differing ways.

“They are probably the two things I've always wanted to do really. If you told me five, ten years ago I'd be doing one of them, I'd be happy.

"So having the opportunity to do both is, I'm very privileged to be in that position and yeah, like it's a good escape in a way almost that my days off, I kind of have to be completely switched off rugby and focused on the medicine.

"So it's good in that way that I get that escape and then probably also the other way, I guess, the escape from medicine sometimes or rugby. So they do kind of complement themselves well.

"Sometimes there's a stage, especially when it's exam time and stuff like that where things get tricky but in general, for now anyway, being able to complement themselves well and find the balance has been good,”

It is a path that has to negotiated with one eye watching for burnout.

"Yeah, like this year had just gone, I took a leave of absence from college, so that was big, I was able to kind of recharge the battery a bit and purely just focus on rugby and then I had the summer off there so I was able to recharge.

"So now I feel like I've got plenty of energy to kind of attack on both fronts now and be able to really enjoy what I'm doing and make the most of it.”