Conor O'Tighearnaigh could be said to represent something of a throwback. Back in the days when playing rugby was officially a hobby for even those at the highest level, there were plenty of doctors and would-be doctors in the international game.

Ireland's greatest player of the pre-professional era, Jack Kyle, worked as a surgeon in Africa for decades. In the professional era, the likes of Felipe Contepomi and Jamie Roberts have combined medical studies with a rugby career.

But it's a rare enough combo these days, making Leinster second row O'Tighearnaigh's juggling of the two all the more notable, especially as he attempts to break into the starting team.

The 23-year old former St Michael's student, who was part of the Ireland Under-20 Grand Slam winning teams in 2022 and 2023, featured in the pack in Leinster's narrow loss to the Lions in Johannesburg last week.

The trip to South Africa has forced a slight pause in his medical training, where he is currently on placement at St Vincent's hospital in Dublin - but he'll catch up soon enough.

"I'm now doing it on a stretched-out basis," O'Tighearnaigh said. "I did the first four years full whack. Last year, I took a leave of absence from medicine.

"I've now returned this year. There's two years remaining for me. I'm spreading that over four years. Thankfully, UCD have been very accommodating and supportive.

"At the moment, I'm on placement in Vincent's. In Leinster, it's four days a week. For the placement, I have one full day on Wednesdays.

"The rest of the days, I make up my hours when I can. If we have shorter days, I can go in the mornings early to Vincent's or in the afternoons after training. I just try to make up the hours that I can.

"I put in the extra work whenever I can. It has to be flexible, especially for trips like this. Down in South Africa, I'll be missing two weeks.

"I try to catch up as much online as I can. When I get back to Dublin, I'll have to put in a bit of extra work to catch up.

"It's not a very black-and-white schedule."

While both careers are extremely challenging, O'Tighearnaigh has also found it beneficial in that both are consuming enough that one can switch off from the other on occasion.

"They're both tough, but they're probably the two things I've always wanted to do, really. If you had told me five or ten years ago I'd be doing one of them, I'd be happy.

"Having the opportunity to do both, I'm very privileged to be in that position. It's a good escape in a way, almost. My days off, I have to be completely switched off rugby and focused on medicine.

"It's good in that way in that I get that escape.

"You have to be very conscious of not draining the battery altogether.

"This year just gone, I took a leave of absence from college. I was able to recharge the battery a bit and purely just focus on rugby."

O'Tighearnaigh was a member of the 2023 U20 side that reached the World Cup final, which they lost heavily to a powerful French team.

Sam Prendergast, Gus McCarthy and Fintan Gunne were also part of the side, the latter scoring a hat-trick in Leinster's opening season game in Durban last Saturday.

O'Tighearnaigh's progress was impeded by a shoulder injury that sidelined him for much of last season. However, this had the effect of allowing to build up his level of physicality.

"I was out basically six months with a shoulder injury, which obviously at the time was a tough period, but also looking back probably gave me a chance to focus on just developing physically and focusing on that.

"I feel the last year or two years I have made good strides in that, becoming more physically ready for the game.

"It's one thing being heavy, but [it's about] being able to use that weight.

"Improving my body composition of becoming more powerful and athletic versus just being heavy and not being able to use it.

"Thankfully, there's a lot of people at Leinster, great S&Cs, great physios who have hugely helped me with that. Just being able to put on weight and being able to use it and making sure it's the right kind of weight."

While an inexperienced Leinster team were edged out 27-26 in Durban, there was a relatively upbeat reaction to the performance.

"Mainly we are disappointed," said O'Tighearnaigh. "I felt like it was a game we definitely could have won and probably feel we maybe should have won.

"Going into it, we knew that it's possibly the toughest game of the season. Lions away, if you look at it, very few teams go there and win.

"For me personally, as a forward, the up-front battle, I felt like physically we were able to match them up front and felt like we were well in the fight.

"Even though we have a young team, we weren't in any way pushed over.

"Up front, the effort that everyone put in, the energy, the physicality, everyone gave 100%."