'Definitely something building here' - Alan O'Connor hoping for Schools' Cup success with Ballymena Academy

O’Connor faces a busy few months after being named as Ireland Women’s forward’s coach for the Six Nations but all his focus is on the Schools’ Cup.

The Co Antrim school start with a home tie in the last 16 against Portadown College and O'Connor and Ballymena Academy are hoping to go one better than 2024 when they lost in the final to RBAI.

“Two years ago, I coached Ballymena with John Nicholl and Andy Warwick, we had a very good year that year and we ended up getting to the final at Ravenhill," O'Connor said.

"I'm back involved now with the school, so I'm in there full time.

“John Nicholl and I are taking the first-team alongside a couple of really good young coaches as well. It's a really exciting group, a few good Ulster representatives in there as well, so we're really excited to see what we can do on January 24 now.

“There's definitely something building there...I've played with a lot of guys from Ballymena and have plenty of history with them.

“I think the last time Ballymena won the Schools’ Cup was John Andrews' year. John and I would be pretty tight, so I might need to get him down for a few sessions and maybe a few pep talks.

“Wazza (Andy Warwick) he's in the club now at the minute, but he's a busy man so I have to try and lock him down to get a bit of help there, scrummaging that's not my expertise.”

O’Connor is just happy Ballymena don’t have to travel for their opening tie.

“We’re buzzing, we're really excited to build towards that now against Portadown," he stated.

"I don't know too much about them now at the minute but we'll get our intel and research on them so we can build towards something hopefully great for our school and kick off with a good dominant win."

The former lock, who played over 200 games for Ulster, is satisfied with the form Ballymena Academy has shown going into the cup.

He reflected: “We've had a couple of good wins and a couple of bad losses actually, two in a row against a couple of big schools now.

“We've come together quite nicely after that and we're getting a bit of positive momentum at the minute.

“Looking forward to seeing how we build...we trained a couple of times over Christmas and then we got straight into it and it is down to business.”

O’Connor feels it was a good lesson playing the bigger schools in the run up to the cup so his side all battle hardened when the action starts.

“I would always want to play against the best schools, 100%, we want to challenge ourselves against the top eight,” he continued.

“To get those experiences of going away to different grounds, whether they be the perceived lesser schools, they can be really hard games with different atmospheres. There's definitely different challenges whether it's going to be the more known higher-end schools and the lesser schools as well.”

O’Connor is hoping to bring the same characteristics to his coaching career as he displayed during his playing days.

“I just have to tone it down a bit I'd say at times,” he smiled. “The guys are hopefully responding to me well enough now at the minute but I'm really enjoying it.

“I'm really enjoying the guys and the staff at the school, with John Nicholl and Stephen Black (headmaster) as well.

“It's good to hopefully get the boys ramped up into the contact area, that'll be my job.”