LONG READ Hugo Keenan: From high school 'D' team to British and Irish Lions immortality

Hugo Keenan and Max Jorgensen will forever be linked now. In years to come, when highlights packages of the 2025 tour are spliced together, we will see Jorgensen steal the ball from Keenan then race away for a try in the opening Test. That will be the low point – sepia and slow-mo. The crescendo will be the Lions full-back, with the clock on 79:09, racing between Jorgensen and Len Ikitau to score the series-clinching try seven days later.

On the post-match beat for Sky Sports, Will Greenwood took Keenan to the very spot where, minutes before, he had dived over to seal a thrilling comeback. “It’s incredible,” said Keenan. “It’s surreal. I’m absolutely delighted. You can see what it means to the players, backroom staff and lads that didn’t get an opportunity to play today. To have our families out here celebrating with us, it’s a special moment.”

Greenwood would later remark Keenan had spent most of this Lions tour on the toilet (we’ll get to that later) and ended it as the hero. As he was hoisted into the night sky by Mack Hansen and Jamie George, all those tough days before and during the tour, all of the doubts he had to battle, and hot takes he had to avoid. All those hours spent cursing his luck on a porcelain perch. All of it was forgotten.

Irish rugby supporters find themselves in a curious but cosy position for this Lions tour. Having cribbed about favouritism from the likes of Clive Woodward and Warren Gatland on past tours, their own favourites are benefiting from Andy Farrell calling the big shots.

There are 18 Ireland players in this ever-growing Lions squad, with 11 of them in the match-day squads for the first and second Tests. Had Garry Ringrose not reported more post-concussion symptoms to Andy Farrell on Thursday, it could well have been 10 Irishmen facing the Wallabies for kick-off at Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Four years ago, many of the tight squad calls went against Ireland players. The loudest outcries came when Johnny Sexton and Ringrose were left at home. Folks were none too happy about Josh van der Flier and James Ryan missing out either. Then there was Keenan. He really could have gone. He was only a year into his Test career but looked right at home at the level, with starts in every back three position and four tries in 11 matches.

Ireland spent four years worrying about how to replace the supreme Rob Kearney. Keenan ended all that in the space of five months.

Ireland spent four years worrying about how to replace the supreme Rob Kearney. Keenan ended all that in the space of five months. In April 2021, Leinster went to Sandy Park and blitzed Exeter Chiefs to reach the Champions Cup semi-final. Former Ireland centre Fergus McFadden declared, “Hugo completely outplayed Stuart Hogg… he is putting himself in a strong position to be a bolter for the Lions.”

Four weeks later, Gatland named his squad and Keenan was left to focus on home tilts against Japan and the USA. The Lions brought Hogg, Liam Williams and Anthony Watson to South Africa, so full-back was well covered. In the years since, Keenan became Farrell’s go-to man. He was already on the path to becoming a 2025 Lion. In Farrell’s first 47 games as Ireland coach, Keenan started 38. The only players who came close were Van der Flier (36) and Peter O’Mahony (34).

The games which were the making of Keenan at international level came against the toughest of opponents. In November 2021, he was excellent in Ireland’s home win over the All Blacks. He swapped jerseys with Jordie Barrett after the game and says it is his most treasured trade. The pair would team up for Leinster last season. Keenan was also superb in a 2022 win over England at Twickenham, throughout a victorious Test series in New Zealand, and when South Africa were edged 19-16, before France were turned over in a Dublin classic, on the way to the 2023 Grand Slam.

In 2024, after helping Ireland retain their Six Nations crown, Keenan stepped back from XVs to pursue his goal of representing his country in sevens, at the Paris Olympics. Keenan went with the blessing of Farrell, but must have been worried when Jamie Osborne looked a natural at 15 in the drawn series against the Springboks. The Dubliner was chasing Olympic glory like Antoine Dupont but, in a very Irish manner, had to head home after a quarter-final defeat.

When he returned to Ireland duty, he was straight back into the 15 jersey. Farrell rates him beyond belief. Should Keenan feature in the final Test, he will be in line to win his 50^th cap against New Zealand at Soldier Field, Chicago, late this year. All awarded by Farrell in the space of four years.

This is the path Keenan would have fantasised about when he was part of a Blackrock College team that won the Leinster Senior Cup in 2014. Joey Carbery was full-back, while future Ireland stars Caelan Doris, Nick Timoney and Jeremy Loughman also lined out at the RDS that day. Keenan went from captain of the school’s ‘D’ team in fourth year, to starting winger for the main crew by his final year. “I was lucky to be involved in a team like that,” Keenan later reflected.

Despite that early success, and involvement with Ireland U20s, Keenan did not initially make Leinster’s sub-academy. He went so far as to hire a sprint coach to work on his running technique and up his speed. When he got another crack, the chance was taken. In November 2016, he would make his senior Leinster debut. It took two more years, though, for his first start. In between, he was on the sevens circuit with an Ireland side scrapping for a place at the top table.

He was determined to make his name in XVs, but experienced some rotten luck with injuries. “In 2018 when I had a few significant injuries for the first time – a broken finger and was out for seven weeks,” Keenan told me. “Broke my collarbone, got surgery on my ankle and had knee ligament injuries, all in the space of a short period. There was a bit of uncertainty – I was being thrown back and forth between sevens and XVs. The resilience and perseverance I showed that year has probably has paid off and, thankfully, I’ve had a bit of luck on the injury front since then.”

He started to turn heads during 2019/20 and would not be denied when rugby returned from the Covid-enforced pause. Keenan is soft-spoken and as polite as they come during his media duties, but he is a determined character. On the tough road back from those three awful injuries seven years ago, he told himself he would be Leinster and Ireland’s full-back. Now, not only is he the Lions number 15, he’s their series winner.

Ireland spent four years worrying about how to replace the supreme Rob Kearney. Keenan ended all that in the space of five months.

It was always going to be Keenan against Kinghorn for the Test shirt, if both men got a clear run of it. If only. Along with Thomas Ramos, they are the form northern hemisphere full-backs. The Scot’s arrival in Australia was delayed by the Top 14-winning run of his Toulouse side. Keenan had to watch from the Aviva Stadium stands, though, as Marcus Smith got first crack at the 15 jersey against Argentina. His calf injury, which caused him to miss the URC final, was then followed by severe sickness in Australia, meaning he had to isolate at one stage. “I was sick for about 12 days,” he said. “I lost five or six kilos.”

Kinghorn made his Lions debut against the Brumbies but was injured in the first 10 minutes and hobbled on for 14 more. After naming his team for the first Test, Farrell told reporters the 28-year-old was a doubt for the Pasifika and First Nations game next Tuesday. Kinghorn wound up playing the whole game, and entering the second Test fray as a replacement on the wing.

“Last man standing,” quipped former England winger Chris Ashton, when the BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly panel were putting Keenan into their provisional Lions teams days out from the official Farrell selection for the opener. It was a touch unfair, but Keenan himself knew he had some convincing to do.

Where fans of England, Scotland and Wales may see him as a steady pair of hands, Irish supporters will argue Keenan is a world-class operator.

That was the way the first Test was playing out – Keenan covering every blade of Suncorp Stadium grass to snuff out threats and claim high balls – until the Jorgensen coming together.

Replays show Keenan smacking a hand against his thigh and letting an expletive go. He would have expected better of himself.

Again, there were calls for Farrell to replace him with Kinghorn. Again, Farrell handed him the start. There is no doubting the Scot’s class, as he showed with some cutting carries when he replaced James Lowe. This was Keenan’s moment, though.

“We knew we had it in us at half-time,” he insisted. “Faz still believed in us and the players had changed the momentum of the game… it still probably wasn’t the performance we wanted in the second half but it was the character, the grit and determination. It was the however many phases in that last set of play, lads stepping up and some unbelievable moments.”

In the aftermath, Keenan ran to the touchline and leapt into the arms of his father, Paul. A beautiful moment, and one of the enduring shots of the day. Farrell, by his own admission, had been screaming for Keenan to pass to Jack Conan, who was trundling down the touchline, in those frantic last seconds. Paul Keenan knew his boy would believe in his ability, just as he has all his days.

“I spoke to his dad after the game and he was never going to pass it,” Farrell said. “He backs himself in those types of situations.

“After what he has been through, it was all worth it. To score at the death of a Lions Test, it’s fairytale stuff. To win like that – it means everything.”