Tadgh Furlong: From New Ross to new Ross at a rate of knots

Four years ago, as Ireland were progressing through their pool in the World Cup, Tadgh Furlong was watching their games from home, having just completed his first year at the Leinster sub-academy and having played throughout the 2011 Under-20 World Championships in Italy. The 2015 World Cup wasn't exactly on the 18-year-old's radar.

“Yea, mostly at home,” he said yesterday, recalling those Irish games in New Zealand. “Just the early morning starts, watching them and supporting the team. And if you asked me four years ago would I be in this position, I would have said: ‘Are you mad? I’d love to be’. But I suppose it’s very hard to see the link and the progress over the last two years and the leaps.”

Indeed, he didn’t even make his Leinster debut until less than two years ago, in November 2013, and only graduated from their full academy the following season. But now he finds himself heir to the Gordon D’Arcy throne in Wexford. To his immense pride too.

Needless to say, the reaction in his native county, and especially in his home town of Campile and his local club, New Ross, about nine miles away, has been huge.

“The place has been rocking. New Ross has been inundated with texts, calls, from my local club and local village, Campile, outside New Ross. Everyone has been really supportive. I suppose I’m the first international to come from the club. They’re obviously very proud and I’m very proud representative of New Ross, my local village Campile, and then Wexford as well. It’s been really good, and if they can drum up a bit of interest for younger lads playing the sport in the county it would be great.”

Although from good farming stock, Furlong says his innate strength emanates from his genes rather than labouring on the farm, his father James having also played as a prop with New Ross.

As Furlong attended Good Counsel, he played both hurling and Gaelic football club, and his elevation to the Irish World Cup squad with the local Horsewood GAA club ensured a resurfacing of the famed video of him barrelling up the touchline from his nominal fullback position, complete with a neat, left footed pick-up on the run and left hand pass.

“Yea, let me ramble it off now, the under-14 County Final, against St Martins. Round B in Wexford Park,” he says with a weary chuckle. “I was like 12 at the time. It’s mad. Someone from the club just uploaded it. Every now and again it just pokes its head out. Someone will have it and say: ‘Oh, did you see this video?’ And I’m like: ‘Oh jeeze, not again lads’. It’s there now and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

He also played a little football in his formative years. “I’m not sure about soccer. I used to play a small bit under-age. I probably would have been a bit too physical for the lads around my age. I’d back my left foot. I would’ve played centre half, could you imagine?” he says in that self-deprecating way of his.

Despite being on Joe Schmidt’s radar, Furlong felt he’d miss the cut after missing five or six weeks of pre-season. “I came back from holidays in pretty good shape, or pretty good shape for me anyway, I don’t know what you consider pretty good shape. So I came in, got the first week of pre-season underway and just on the Friday I tweaked my quad so it set me back a few weeks, came back to return to play and tweaked it again so it put me out for quite a stretch. In that time you’re thinking, ‘look I am after missing five, six weeks of pre-season here’. It’s very disappointing and you are thinking to yourself: ‘Jeeze, have I blown my shot? Have I blown my chance to get into the World Cup squad here?’ ”

“But when I returned from injury, it was lucky the way it fell with Marty Moore’s foot (injury). I got a chance to get my first cap against Wales. It was coming up to selection time then, but I honestly didn’t know which way it was going to go. I would have understood if he hadn’t picked me because of my time out and inexperience, but I’m very grateful he has. I think I’m trucking along nicely now, especially in training and I’m really enjoying it.”

Having made his debut as a replacement in the defeat at home to Wales, he could hardly have expected to then come on as a 70th minute replacement at Twickenham for Simon Zebo – one of the more curious looking addendums to team sheets in the history of Test rugby.

Rather than a re-run of his under-14 GAA days, this actually meant a brief turn in the backrow before Mike Ross returned to the fray within four minutes and Furlong reverted to the frontrow.

"I went on at '6' and we pushed Chris Henry onto the wing. It was a bit odd. Rossy came back and I went to loosehead. I still tried to focus on my basics; the ruck, lineout and scrum. I don't think anyone was expecting me to have an unbelievable game at '6' for 10 minutes, put it that way," he said, decidedly tongue-in-cheek.

Indeed, despite only having played as a tighthead since leaving school, Furlong has the additional baggage of potentially providing cover at loosehead.

“I suppose I would have played a small bit in training with Leinster last year and year before. I would have played some underage stuff; Irish U20s, I would have played loosehead so it wasn’t completely alien to me. Obviously there were question marks about if I could play at international level because it’s a huge jump, as you can imagine, from Irish Under-20s and Leinster training up to international level.”

"I found out that I was going to be on the bench at loose head in the England week and I got training where you're scrummaging against Mike Ross and Nathan White. Your confidence builds in how you're doing against them. It's something that I'm getting more comfortable with and if I was called upon to play loosehead, I wouldn't have a problem with it."

Rooming with his fellow 22-year-old Robbie Henshaw, he's clearly enjoying himself no end. "This is my first time going away on a tour since my time at under-20s. It's probably a step up from that again, as you could imagine. I'm really enjoying being around the lads. It's good craic being away and at the same time the rugby is serious, and training has been really, really good."

Being wheeled out in front of the media yesterday may, or may not, be a sign of some game time against Romania, who generally bring a strong scrum to proceedings, but he’s been given no indication yet.

“We’ll just keep tipping away and see how we go over the next 24/48 hours. The World Cup is up and running now and I’d love to get some game time and try to throw my foot forward for the following matches. I’d love to get on the field.”

Seemingly living the dream at this World Cup, now, conceivably, Furlong could play in another three of these things yet.