Evan O'Connell feels no extra pressure as the nephew of Ireland legend Paul, saying he has to forge his own way in the game.
The elder O'Connell distinguished himself on the field of play for Munster, Ireland and the British and Irish Lions, the second row captaining all three teams in a glittering career between 2001 and 2015.
He's the current Ireland forwards coach under Andy Farrell.
Evan, also a lock, captained the Ireland Under-20s and toured with Emerging Ireland in 2024 after coming through the Munster academy and will start his first senior deal at the start of next season.
The 22-year-old has made 11 senior appearances, the last of which came in the win over Lions, in which he scored a try, that secured their place in the BKT URC play-offs 12 days ago.
The pedigree and position will inevitably link the pair but Evan is determined to cut his own path.
"No, I don't care," he said when asked if the name was a weight or an inspiration.
"If people are going to do it, I'd expect that but I'm my own player, my own person, and I have to be that way.
"Obviously, Paul is an unbelievable help to me as well in my career but I have to be my own player, my own person as well."
Evan's father, Justin, was a lock with UL Bohs and played a huge part in his son's development, while there are numerous close contacts at Munster that he has learned off with a special mention for departing forwards coach Alex Codling.
"My dad had a huge impact on me growing up. Coaching me in UL Bohs since I was about four," said the Limerick man.
"He coached me all the way up until U18s and I just loved it. I played a lot of sports growing up. I played some soccer, I played some hurling, some Gaelic football, I played a bit of everything. I actually loved the hurling as well.
"But ultimately, it was just rugby once I got into school in Castletroy and started playing Junior Cup and progressing into Senior Cup, I just fell in love with it and stuck at it from there.
"In terms of players in here, Fineen (Wycherley, Munster lock) has been unbelievable for me in here.
"He's an unbelievable lineout caller. Learning off a fella like that and Tadhg Beirne, Jean Kleyn, Tom Ahern, the list goes on, there's so many there.
"In terms of coaching then, Alex Codling is just amazing.
"His attention to detail, his care for the club and the people, and how much he helps us in the lineout, I've never seen anything like it."
Clayton McMillan is likely to deploy O'Connell (above) in some capacity against the Bulls on Saturday at midday (Irish time) in Pretoria as they bid to emulate the 2023 URC-winning team with their fifth place-seeding setting them up for away days as long as they remain in contention.
"He's got a big ceiling," said McMillan of the 6ft 7in, 17stone forward.
"He's somebody who's really only scratching the surface in terms of his potential.
"He's in an attritional position and he's coming along really nicely in terms of building his body to be able to deal with the weekly pressures of playing at this level of the game.
"He's a real student of the game so he understands it, and he shows a hell of a lot of leadership in that regard.
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"Like most other guys, he's just learning his craft around being a pro and what it takes to compete against not only the opposition but against his own team-mates in order to get across the line.
"We want a squad that's three or four deep across the competition, and across the squad in each position.
"We need each and every one of them to be fighting on a weekly basis to earn the right to put on the jersey on the weekend and sometimes the old dogs that have been around a little bit more, they have a little bit of an advantage.
"But we want young guys like Evan nipping at their heels and he's certainly been doing that and he showed on the weekend that he is coming along nicely.
"Against the Lions, he scored a nice try, operated really well as a lineout caller and he's probably likely to be in the mix in some regard against the Bulls so there'd be another test of where he's at."
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