{"id":344145,"date":"2026-03-13T11:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T11:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/344145\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T11:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T11:56:08","slug":"six-nations-2026-from-forgotten-man-to-six-nations-star-robert-baloucounes-revival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/344145\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Nations 2026: From forgotten man to Six Nations star &#8211; Robert Baloucoune&#8217;s revival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">So, what does Baloucoune put his good form down to? <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It&#8217;s a simple formula really; playing consistently and being injury-free, something he has not had the luxury of doing in the past two years, has helped increase his self-belief to perform at his best on the pitch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;My ability to play games repeatedly is something that&#8217;s been a big focus of mine, trying to be in training consistently and being able to do that has allowed me to build confidence each game I&#8217;ve played and being able to do that continuously is a big factor in my game,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Saturday, Baloucoune will come up against two more wingers playing at the peak of their powers in Scottish duo Darcy Graham and Kyle Steyn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Both wingers have registered three tries each to keep Scotland in the hunt for the Triple Crown and the championship.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Baloucoune is relishing the opportunity to show he belongs alongside such high-calibre wingers as Ireland also look to retain the Triple Crown and keep their outside hopes of a championship win alive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I enjoy the opportunity to play against different types of winger and that will definitely be the case this weekend,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Scotland have been class this championship and have really exciting backs and the wingers have been playing well, but I also see it as an opportunity to show my ability on the pitch and back myself defensively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Kyle Steyn is a physical character, I&#8217;ve played [against] Darcy Graham a few times at Edinburgh, he&#8217;s nippy and works round the nines quite well which is something I need to work on in my game, but they&#8217;re two class wingers, they know how score and that&#8217;s a main focus for every winger, so they&#8217;re doing well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It will definitely be a challenge at the weekend, but I back myself and looking forward to the challenge.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His resurgence from forgotten man to a key player for Ireland shows that Baloucoune is always up for overcoming huge challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So, what does Baloucoune put his good form down to? It&#8217;s a simple formula really; playing consistently and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-344145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}