Connacht’s Paul Boyle riding high on air of optimism among province’s fans

Paul Boyle is now 29, in his 10th season with Connacht and effectively his ninth as a senior contracted player, having been bumped up in his second year at the academy in 2018-19. He’s a native now, to all intents and purposes.“I couldn’t really see myself anywhere else. I’ve been given so much support as a young academy player right up to senior level. I love Connacht, and hopefully I can get another few years out of it because I don’t want it to end just yet.”Galway reminds him of Gorey, where he was born and reared.“It has a very similar community vibe. I’m living on the Salthill side of town, and you go for a walk on the prom, and you bump into half the people you know, and it’s just a beautiful place. Going for a sauna or a sea swim, it’s just a really enjoyable, chilled-out place to live.”READ MOREBoyle has roots here now too. He married into Connacht rugby royalty in Hannah, daughter of former Connacht player Joe Healy. They have a baby girl, Lola, who is 14 months old, all of which makes him appreciate there’s no greater sense of occasion in Connacht’s season than Leinster’s annual visit to the Dexcom on Friday (kick-off 7.45pm) in front of a 12,500 full house.“Talking to my friends, talking to Hannah’s friends, there’s so many of them coming to this game. Town will be jammed. The Dexcom will be packed out. There is always a bigger buzz for this game going back to older times with Connacht.“It would have been a backs-against-the-walls job against the bigger Leinster, the Dublin crowd, but now, particularly with Stu [Lancaster] in, it’s less of that mindset. It’s a game of rugby to test yourself against the best and seeing how you get on, with a real mindset to win it.”Not since the 2016 Pro12 has there been such an air of optimism and positivity among Connacht supporters, especially with the new Clan Stand and high-performance centre in the redeveloped Dexcom.“Someone described it to me there recently as ‘the hottest ticket in town at the moment ’, and it really is. There aren’t better facilities in world rugby, I’d say. We have absolutely everything we could ask for in a training facility and the game-day experiences is incredible as well,” says Boyle, especially considering the “humble beginnings” players before him, and he himself, knew.Ireland’s Paul Boyle and Charly Trussardi of Italy when representing their countries at under-18 level. Photograph: James Crombie The Boyle family buy-in has also been fairly complete. His younger brother Mark (25) will again captain Galway Corinthians in their AIL Division 2A game against Shannon in Creggs RFC this Saturday.Mark had a three-month trial for the Connacht academy which didn’t lead to a full offer, but he enjoyed Galway and playing for Corinthians so much he opted to stay put. Their younger sister, Susan, is flying the flag in Wexford, where she is studying to become a teacher.But their parents, Pablo – real name Paul before a nickname from a holiday with mates in Spain in his early 20s stuck for the rest of his life – and Joanne enjoyed weekends in Galway watching their sons play, so they decided to relocate there a month before Lola was born.Sport was always likely to dictate Boyle’s life. He played everything: mini-rugby from the age of seven in Gorey RFC, football with Courtown Hibs until under-12s and Gaelic football and hurling with Castletown until 18.His dad, from Dublin, had played mostly Gaelic football before football became his passion with several Leinster Senior League clubs, but mainly St James’s Gate.“His mom and dad, my granny and grandad, are dead now but they were the only ones that ever called him Paul. Everybody calls him Pablo. I’ve never heard a nickname stick as much.”It was Pablo who brought him to mini-rugby in Gorey.“I always wonder did I love rugby more than other sports, or was I just better at rugby? I was probably just better at rugby. But I remember being nervous as anything before under-8 games. I always loved the sport and wanted be the best I could be.”Boyle played with Gorey until under-19s, and at 15 the former Leinster backrow Declan O’Brien brought him into the province’s southeast development squad to play in the Shane Horgan Cup. That led to the Leinster Youths and captaining the province’s under-19s and under-20s, and Irish under-20s.Ireland's Paul Boyle during a game against the USA in 2022. Photograph: Bryan Keane He owes O’Brien? “I surely do.” And his dad, who brought him to training in Naas every Monday, and Carlow IT on Wednesday, for two years.Boyle captained Ireland at the Under-20 World Cup in Georgia in 2017. With Max Deegan, Will Connors and Caelan Doris, contemporaries, there was no place in the Leinster academy for him.Colin McEntee was a mentor, and after the Under-20 World Cup, Nigel Carolan rang him to say Eric Elwood was interested in him joining the Connacht academy.“I had wanted this so badly, I said: ‘I’m not going to waste a minute’. I was living in a house just behind the Sportsground and got stuck in. Eric Ellwood was brilliant. He was honest, told me what I needed to improve on and guided me towards becoming the best pro I could be.”There was a cap for Ireland against the USA in July 2022. “The one-cap international is a funny one. It was in a Lions year against the USA.“I don’t mean to even talk about it in a negative light because there are so many people who have strived to get to the top and get their Ireland cap, but it doesn’t fill me with huge pride. I wanted more. To be honest, I don’t know where I sit on it.“The day was nice. It was great representing your country, but there’s always that little bit of wanting more, and that’s the feeling I’m left with currently.”But the more memorable days and nights have been Champions Cup games and interpros with Connacht, and silverware with Connacht would trump everything.“When I think about rugby, there are so many highs and lows and sometimes I think the lows could be lower than the highs are high. But I think the ultimate goal is striving to win silverware. There are a lot of stepping stones along the way. We want to finish top four to give ourselves that home quarter-final. But I think if we achieve that, there’s huge scope for this team and so much of that goes down to Stu instilling that mindset.“That’s definitely what we’re striving for. Silverware is exactly where we hope this team can go.”