Munster’s John Hodnett looking to turn the screw on Leinster and extend his best season to date

Carpentry and GAA are in John Hodnett’s blood more than rugby. His dad Dan is a carpenter by trade and whenever Hodnett is home in Rosscarbery he likes to help out. It’s a release, not least when injured, particularly during a near year-long absence from the game after tearing his Achilles tendon in November 2020.

“It’s a great way to switch off from rugby. You’re out in the fresh air, in the countryside, just working away. It’s kind of therapeutic and I make an effort to do it to switch off from rugby.”

“We do roofing, ‘first fixing’ and ‘second fixing’, slating, felting, floorboards, a bit of everything. I really enjoy it.”

He lives with Shane Daly, and during lockdown, Daly wanted to build a spare bedroom in his own house, so Hodnett duly obliged.

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His dad also comes from a farming background and before Munster’s Champions Cup game against the Sharks when the squad were training one day in Durban, Hodnett took great delight in hopping aboard and driving a tractor.

Hodnett hasn’t had much time for carpentry lately, but that’s fine by him. He is enjoying finally being fully fit and playing plenty of rugby this season. He has played 18 games and 1,119 minutes, easily his most productive campaign.

One former Munster player says of Hodnett that he “has that bit of dog in him”, which thereabouts is a complement.

“Depends on what it means,” says Hodnett, either cautiously or modestly. Well, in the sense that if you get knocked down 24 times you’ll still be getting up the 25th time. “Yeah, yeah,” he agrees. “Something like that.”

It probably has something to do with his upbringing in west Cork, not exactly fertile rugby territory, more wall-to-wall Gaelic football, and Carbery Rangers was Hodnett’s club.

“I played football most of my life and rugby wasn’t as serious until 18/19 years of age. If something clashed, I played football, and a bit of hurling as well. There’s not a whole pile [of hurling] down in Ross.

“I also played road bowling, ever hear of that?” (Eh, actually covered it back in the day once John). “It’s savage. It’s big in west Cork, and in Antrim too. I’ll probably do a bit again this summer. Just a bit of craic.”

Dan and Margo reared four kids, with Hodnett the youngest to two sisters, Orla and Laura, and a brother Daniel, who plays Gaelic football.

Encouraged by a friend in primary school, Brendan Laydon, Hodnett did start playing mini rugby with Clonakilty from the age of eight, despite knowing nothing about the game. He owes his boyhood friend a favour. “I always say it to him.”

Helpfully, Clonakilty had a good team, which also featured Cian Hurley, the 23-year-old lock now in the Munster academy, and at 18, Hodnett also went into the Clonakilty team.

“You’d definitely get a bit of hardness and doggedness playing in that league,” he admits wryly. He remembers tough, low-scoring games against Bruff, Galbally and Skibbereen.

“‘Skib was a big one, because whoever lost went down to J2. And we lost! It was good though, my first time playing adult rugby. A solid bunch of lads.”

By then, he was in the Munster set-up with the under-18s club sides, which was his sliding doors moment. “I was there or thereabouts in the minor team in Cork, but I kind of had to do one or the other, which is fair enough. I was doing my Leaving Cert as well, so I just went with the rugby.”

Hodnett went to UCC and began playing AIL Division 1A rugby.

“It was the highest level of rugby I had played at the time. They had just won promotion from 1B under Brian Walsh. ‘Squeaks’ is a great fellah. Some of the Munster coaches were pushing me to play hooker so I played hooker for the under-19s, but it wasn’t really for me, and Squeaks encouraged me to do what I enjoyed. Really good advice. A legend. Any advice he gives you is really good. I’d say the best decision I ever made was going to UCC.”

He has three weeks left to complete his degree at UCC in PE teaching and maths while finishing his year’s placement in St Mucnhin’s.

“The teachers and staff are lovely, and the lads are sound. It’s a really good school, and a big rugby school too. The facilities are savage.”

While carpentry is his calling, he likes teaching too. “But I want to do my degree at least, and I can do whatever I want then.”

Hodnett was an ever-present at number eight on the Irish Under-20 Grand Slam winning team under another influential coach, Noel McNamara, and played the first two games in the World Cup in Argentina before a knee injury cut short his tournament.

“Noel gave me a shot at backrow and I owe him a lot as well. A great bunch and a lot of us have pushed on.”

On foot of that, Hodnett made the Munster academy. Being from west Cork he hadn’t been to many Munster games, maybe two he reckons in Thomond Park, which is a five- to six-hour round trip. Yet his family haven’t missed any of his games, in any of his sports.

His entire family were in Glasgow for last weekend’s quarter-final win and will be in the Aviva again on Saturday, as well as his girlfriend Éabha.

These are good days. Less so the year out. He’d scored his try in a man-of-the-match debut, watched by extended family and friends, in Musgrave Park against the Southern Kings in February 2020 and played four more games before his Achilles tendon injury snapped in training on the 4G pitch in the UL.

“I was defending a lineout, went the wrong way, and it just snapped. It was a freak crash. It’s crazy too, as I’ve heard of a few since. Edwin Edogbo has done it, and Cian Hurley recently as well. The same as Cian, you step back, then you go forward, and it goes!

“You’re on crutches and you can barely do anything, but that’s when being able to come home and work with my oul man comes into play. I kept myself busy and in carpentry there’s a lot of thinking, and then there’s a sense of satisfaction when your work is done.”

Munster, to their credit, also upgraded him with his first pro contract two months after the injury.

Pain-free, and harbouring no doubts, he made is comeback over 11 months later for UCC against Terenure. Then, after a return game against Ospreys he was one of a dozen Champions Cup debutants in Munster’s storied 35-14 win away to Wasps in December 2021 when Covid struck the squad in South Africa.

Hodnett has played 33 games since and has hardly looked back, save for the knee injury which ended his season last March. He’s enjoying working under the new coaching ticket, helped by Denis Leamy’s influence. Hodnett was the URC’s ‘Tackle Machine’ for the 2022-23 season, making 151 tackles with a 96 per cent accuracy in the regular season.

“To be honest, I didn’t know it was a thing, but I’ve done a lot of work on tackle technique this season, so I suppose it does pay off.”

Having missed the two URC games in South Africa with a calf strain, Hodnett was a fifth-minute replacement for Peter O’Mahony last weekend, and duly made another 21 tackles.

“I spend a lot of time with Denis doing tackle extras and looking at stuff on video. You look at his career, and it speaks for itself, and he speaks very well too. Graham [Rowntree, head coach], Prendy [Mike Prendergast, attack coach] and Kyri [Andi Kyriacou, forwards coach] are very good too.”

Dynamic in the wider channels, too, and good over the ball, he says: “For me the training they’ve introduced has been the key. You can’t make those bursts or make that extra tackle without being fit.”

Hodnett has become something of a cause célèbre for many of the Munster faithful this season, not least when his ex-Irish backrow team-mate Scott Penny was added to the senior Ireland squad ahead of him.

“To be honest this season was all about trying to stay fit and play for Munster. Playing in a World Cup would be a lovely thing to do, but I haven’t been in camp yet, so you have to be realistic too. There’s a lot of good backrowers in Ireland. Look, all I can do is go out and play my best and see what happens. I’m fit and healthy which is the main thing.”

Although the Aviva is a Leinster fortress, Munster have ended long unbeaten home runs by the Stormers and Glasgow, albeit Hodnett admits they need their best performance of the season on Saturday.

“Who’s going to go into a semi-final thinking they can’t win it? There’s no point in turning up if that’s the case. They’re the top team in the League and in the European final. But all we can do is focus on ourselves and why not go to the Aviva and beat them.

“Obviously, it’s a lot easier said than done, but it’s massively exciting and if we don’t win this will be our last game of the season. So, there’s no point in leaving anything in the tank.”

Not that Hodnett would do anything else.