Glasgow scrumhalf Jack Oliver reflects on father’s death and emotional return to South Africa

“It was good – apart from the rugby.”

Jack Oliver has just returned home from Glasgow’s annual mini-tour of the southern hemisphere. Only defeats to the Lions and Stormers are not why he is asked about the trip.

This was his first time back in South Africa since the death of his father.

Jack was in the Ireland squad for the 2023 iteration of World Rugby’s U20 World Championship. The young scrumhalf, then in the Munster academy, had his family following the tournament in South Africa.

In between watching Ireland’s games, Jack’s father, Greig, died in a paragliding accident in Cape Town. He was 58.

It’s not that the significance of going back just shy of three years later was lost on Jack. You get the sense that he didn’t want to make a fuss. Now on the books at Glasgow, he was in South Africa to do a job.

“My mum asked me how would I feel about it,” explains Oliver. “So did Franco [Smith, Glasgow’s head coach]. I knew eventually I’d have to go over there at some stage so I’m glad it’s done now.

“Next time I go over, it’s going to be easier [but] it wasn’t tough at all.”

The accident took place on July 3rd, 2023. The next day, Ireland played Fiji. When he went to bed the night before the match, after his mother had come to the team hotel to deliver tragic news, Oliver had every intention of wearing his 21 jersey to back up starting scrumhalf Fintan Gunne.

[ Ulster walk selection tightrope against Glasgow ahead of defining weekOpens in new window ]

The way he tells it, it was as much injury as grief that ruled him out. With the blessing of Richie Murphy, then in charge of the U20s, Oliver returned home to watch Ireland’s run to the final from Limerick.

“I said to my mum and our friends, ‘I’m going to play,’” explains Oliver. “I was on the bench. I woke up on the Tuesday morning, I was like ‘Nah, I can’t do it.’ Richie was well on board with it, the coaches were very supportive.

“I reckon I wouldn’t have been able to play anyway because I had a swollen lymph node on my underarm from an infected cut. It was like a tennis ball on my underarm. I wasn’t able to pass the ball, at the captain’s run the day before I was gritting my teeth passing. I wouldn’t have been able to stay out in Cape Town anyway for the World Cup.

“I stayed in the hotel with my family the night before and then went with the team on the morning of the game. It was fine, it was more difficult for my mum and a few family friends. It was obviously very raw still.”

***

Greig Oliver was a well-known figure in both the Scottish and Irish rugby communities. A native of Hawick, 50 miles south of Edinburgh, he won three caps for Scotland. When Jack was four years of age, the Olivers moved to Ireland. Greig took up a coaching role with Garryowen in Limerick. He later worked as an elite performance officer with Munster and served as an assistant when Mike Ruddock led the Ireland U20s.

Wherever Jack went, Greig’s involvement in rugby followed. He coached him as a youngster in Garryowen, before Jack went to school in Castletroy College. Even then, the pair would work on kicking and passing – both of them were scrumhalves – before Jack entered the Munster academy.

When the younger Oliver made his senior debut for Glasgow, team-mate Jamie Dobie performed the honour of presenting him his jersey. “I know how proud your dad would be of you,” he said of Oliver becoming the 372nd man to play for the Warriors.

A few months earlier, in search of game time, Oliver was given a club rugby assignment with the Currie Chieftains. Based in Edinburgh, who were they due to play that weekend only Hawick, Greig’s old club. Jack’s grandmother, still in Hawick, came down to watch him play for the first time. After he ran out on the same Mansfield Park turf that his father once graced, Hawick’s old president pointed out the lack of distance between apple and tree.

Every child of a rugby family will be associated to some degree with their well-known relatives. Tragedy only adds to the sense that, for now at least, Jack is seen as Greig’s son.

“It’s what I grew up with anyway,” says Oliver. “My friends used to give me grief. I was only getting picked because he was coaching. I’m well used to it.

“Being in Hawick as well, everyone knew me as my dad’s son, but now in the last year or two, they know I’m playing over here and they know me personally. It’s the same as any other fella whose dad is involved in rugby, there are plenty of examples. Jack Murphy, Richie Murphy, all of those. There are a lot of people who have to deal with it as they play.

“Rugby’s one of those sports where it’s a tradition, family tradition. My grandad played, my mum’s dad played with London Irish. He was a Garryowen man. That’s why we ended up playing there. My dad coached in Garryowen because it was my grandad’s club.”

***

There is a pattern here, saying he’s used to certain things, or that returning to South Africa wasn’t a tough experience. It is all remarkably matter-of-fact. Oliver is not uncomfortable talking about his father’s death – quite the opposite. But he does project an image of a young man who has come to terms with his grief.

“It’s probably due to my parents,” says Oliver. “Growing up, just watching what they do. My mum is very strong. She’s flying it at the moment, same with my sister. I think it’s a mindset in the family, just mentally strong.

“That’s not to say you don’t [not] feel mentally strong sometimes. You can have s**t days and good days as well, it’s about venting whatever you’re feeling to someone else.”

Who has been his outlet?

“My mum and my girlfriend would say different,” says Oliver, smiling. “They’d say I don’t talk about things. But my sister talks to me, it happens both ways. We’re all close-knit.”

Alongside his family, Oliver is keen to highlight the support of one particular former team-mate. Oliver grew up alongside fellow Garryowen man and former Ireland U20 hooker Max Clein. “My dad and his dad coached us all the way up,” says Oliver. “We’re very good friends with them.

“I see them every time I go back home as well. I just texted Max actually because he’s a [AIL] 1B player of the year nominee for Garryowen.”

When Jack returned from South Africa in 2023, he did what plenty his age do and took to Instagram. He marked a tour that saw both tragedy and elation, Oliver earning his first U20 cap. “The hardest few weeks but glad to get the first cap and have special people there in SA,” wrote Oliver. He ended the caption with a pair of dove emojis.

Included in the post are a pair of post-match snaps. The first has the Olivers next to the Cleins, Jack and Max accompanied by their fathers on the sideline. The second sees Jack posing with Greig and his mother Fiona after debuting against Australia.

***

Rugby, unsurprisingly, is the dominant theme when Oliver shares memories of his father. “We used to go to all the Munster games at home, most of the Irish games in the Aviva as well,” he says. “I’ve been to quite a few actually, quite a few good ones.

“I remember the Munster vs Glasgow one, 2024. I went to it with my grandad because that was the year after [Greig’s death] actually. Plenty of European Cup games as well, Saracens in the Aviva in 2018 stands out.

“I’d say I’ve watched Ireland beat the All Blacks three times with him. He was a massive influence, a nine as well.

“When I was old enough to have a beer, I’d have one with him after a game. We used to go down to watch a couple of games, if we didn’t have the channel, down to Crokers, Peter Clohessy’s old bar in Murroe. We used to always have a few pints there and watch a game with my grandad as well.”

Growing up as a child, did he know of Greig’s international career?

“I was pretty aware because we used to go over to Hawick a good bit and bump into people. He got videos sent to him of him playing, he used to show us.

“I remember on Sky Sports one day they were showing a replay of a match, it was Zimbabwe maybe, he was playing the World Cup. The amount of programmes, jerseys and ties that he’s collected back in the day, it’s mad. We still have all that and will keep all that.”

***

Despite being born in Scotland, Oliver’s Limerick accent rings true. Perhaps conscious of the Warriors crest on his jumper, he half-jokingly says he feels more Scottish than Irish these days.

Knowing he was being released from the Munster academy at the end of last season, Oliver found an opportunity with Glasgow in April 2025. A one-month trial turned into a short-term contract until the end of the campaign. Then an academy deal for this year. Oliver was recently rewarded with a two-year senior contract, one that will keep him in Scotstoun until 2028.

He’s played seven times in his first full year for Glasgow, perhaps more than originally planned for an academy player. Oliver now enjoys playing under Franco Smith and Irish attack coach Nigel Carolan. “It’s totally different to back home, a different shape, the way we play is a bit different,” he says. “There’s a bit of free rein as well to back yourself.

“Nigel is class, he’s implemented an attack that’s worked pretty well so far anyway. Training is unbelievable because both teams are using our attacking shape and cutting each other apart.”

Moving back to the country of his birth was serendipity for Oliver, more so than any desire to follow in his father’s footsteps. It just so happened that Glasgow were the ones to pick up the phone. Ditto the opportunity to play in Hawick’s Mansfield Park last year when Oliver was sent to play against Greig’s old club.

After being cut adrift by his home province, the 23-year-old is forging a professional path with a distinct Scottish flavour. The feeling of sadness that Greig isn’t around to see it is inescapable – see Dobie’s speech after Jack’s debut.

Anger might be a strong term, but Oliver would be forgiven for highlighting how unfair this is. He doesn’t seem the sort. Just focus on the happy coincidence of it all.

“It’s just the way it worked out,” Oliver says, matter-of-fact as ever. “Mad things can happen.”

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