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23rd August 2017
02:28pm BST

"It was good to get all the squad back together with a few of those lads that were away with the Lions. Bundee did good; he fitted in well. It was his first camp and he did well. It's tough now. "I remember when I was coming into camp for the first time. For the first four days I was locking myself into my room to learn all the plays and the calls because there was so much detail to learn straight away. And for Joe, you literally need to learn that within 24 hours. "It was just trying to learn all the new calls... I was okay as I was used to many of them but we've all our new plays at Connacht now as well as Ireland. So Bundee has double the work that I do. But he coped with himself very well and did good in training."Aki is only easing himself back to full fitness so he did not feature in every play, or rep, at Carton House but he did enough to get many that featured enthused about what he could bring to Test rugby.
O'Halloran's eyes lit up when he spoke about his time with the Irish squad.
"I love being involved up there. Any time I get any involvement in the squad, it's brilliant. Training and playing with the older guys up there and the intensity is higher. How Joe goes about everything is very intense. You always have to be pretty switched on." He added, "It's a higher level than at provincial and it's up to us Connacht guys, whether it is five or six of us that's up, to bring that back to Connacht and raise everybody else's standards."From the odd player in Ireland squads to regularly have five or six heading off to Kildare to train under Schmidt & Co. Along with the 2015/16 PRO12 title, that must be the greatest success in the province's 22 years in the professional game.
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