Patrick Campbell discusses how Gaelic football shaped his rugby

Irish fullback Patrick Campbell discusses his club debut this weekend, how Gaelic football shaped his rugby, and reading Stephen King novels

After signing for Trailfinders ahead of the 2025/26 season, Patrick Campbell will make his Club debut against Richmond in Round Three of the Champ.

Campbell played in two out of three pre-season fixtures for Trailfinders but makes the starting XV ahead of the Friday Night Lights fixture at Richmond Athletic Ground.

“I’m really excited,” Campbell said ahead of Round Three. “I really enjoyed playing in the pre-season games, but I’m looking forward to getting my first competitive start.”

Trailfinders have won two games from two in the Champ this season. Richmond are the newly promoted side for 2025/26 and have started their campaign with one win and one loss.

“I think it’s going to be a physical match,” Campbell said.

“It’s our local match with both of us being based in West London. I think they’re going to come out the gates and they will want to cause a bit of an upset.

“Because they’re only thirty minutes or so down the road from us, a few of the lads might know each other and that always adds another element to these sorts of matches.”

Whilst Campbell has played rugby since he was a teenager, it wasn’t the only sport he was involved in. Popular sports in Ireland such as hurling and Gaelic football both caught Campbell’s interest when he was growing up.

“I came from a really big Gaelic football family, so early on in my life I did football.

“I started playing rugby when I was around thirteen when I was at school. At around seventeen, I had to decide between the two sports. But Gaelic football isn’t professional whereas rugby was. I realised that you only got one opportunity at professional sport so I chose rugby.

“Rugby is massive in Ireland and my family had always been huge Munster fans. I also went to a lot of their games.”

Although Campbell has cemented himself as a fullback, that was not the position he started out in when he first picked up a rugby ball.

“I actually started out in the forwards. When I was at school, I played hooker and then moved to eight. Then I realised I wasn’t going to grow as big as some of the back rows here. So I decided to move to the back line.

“Gaelic football certainly helps with skills required to be a fullback. There are a lot of similar traits that come in from catching high balls, to just general hand-eye coordination. There’s a lot of crossover.

“I coach with the U18s here at the Club and I know a few of them play Gaelic football. They always say the hand-eye coordination really helps. I would encourage people to give it a go as a sport.”

Having lived the majority of his life in Ireland, this is Campbell’s first time living in London.

“I’m really enjoying,” he said. “It’s really easy to settle in here.

“On my first day, I met up with Michael Stronge and we went to a local cafe. We were sat outside, drinking our coffee and there were two people next to us and I was like, are they Irish? And they were.”

Both at the club and beyond, there’s a large Irish contingent. Whilst some people are partial to a certain brand of Irish stout, Campbell prefers the Cork brand over the Dublin one.

“I’m more of a Murphy’s man than a Guinness. But Murphy’s is quite difficult to find over here on tap.”

Often with sportspeople, the arts and humanities don’t always go hand in hand. However, with Ealing being one of the beating hearts of arts and culture in West London, there are several players at Trailfinders who are interested in humanities or artistic subjects. Campbell is one of them having studied History and English at university.

“I’ve always enjoyed writing,” he said. “I enjoy it and I’ve always been pretty good at it. My mum’s an English teacher so she was always pushing me to read when I was younger.

“I originally started out doing law at university but I couldn’t get into it. So I decided to do something that I was actually interested in.

“I really like early American history and Irish history, particularly in the 20th Century. You can never cover everything in history so you just break it down in terms of certain periods and locations, even though you don’t say that you study a period of history, you just say you study history.”

In terms of fiction, Campbell enjoys the cinematic writing style of Stephen King.

“I’m currently reading King’s 11/22/63 which is about John F. Kennedy’s assassination. His writing is a form of science fiction. That type of vivid writing is often what makes good cinema because it’s not difficult for a screenwriter to imagine what it would look like when the writing is so scenic.”

Perhaps one day Campbell might pen his own novel. But for now, he looks forward to his Club debut against Richmond.