Ericson And Kenny Earn Leinster Academy Places

Leinster Rugby Academy Manager Simon Broughton has confirmed that Josh Ericson and Josh Kenny have been added to the province’s Academy intake.

Both players have been training with the wider squad over the course of the pre-season programme, and have been retained after impressing over the summer months.

Kenny has impressed so much that he already has two caps for Leinster in the BKT United Rugby Championship. He scored a brace of tries in the recent win over Zebre Parma at the Aviva Stadium.

The 22-year-old winger from Enniskerry went to St. Patrick’s National School in Curtlestown, before attending Presentation College, Bray.

He started out his rugby journey with Greystones RFC and has represented UCD RFC and more recently, Terenure College RFC in Energia All-Ireland League Men’s Division 1A.

A talented 100 metres sprinter in his youth, he also played soccer with Enniskerry FC, before rugby took hold in Greystones.

Over the last two seasons, Kenny has represented the Ireland Men’s Sevens team on the HSBC SVNS Series circuit, before joining Leinster Rugby in time for pre-season training in July.

Meanwhile, Ericson was due to feature in Leinster’s Bank of Ireland pre-season match against Cardiff in Tallaght, but an unfortunate hamstring injury ruled him out of selection for the game.

The Skerries native attended Scoil Réalt na Mara before going on to Skerries Community College, the alma mater of Leinster and Ireland’s Ciarán Frawley.

He played Gaelic football with Skerries Harps, and was involved in athletics with Skerries AC, but Skerries RFC nurtured his love of rugby from a young age, which had already started at home.

Ericson’s father Moray and mother Pamela both played rugby, with Moray representing Southland in New Zealand, where he is from, while Pamela played with and captained Old Belvedere RFC.

Back rower Josh himself now plays with Old Belvedere in the Energia All-Ireland League, following in his mum’s footsteps at Ollie Campbell Park.