Fogarty profits from his refusal to lie down

The Leinster hooker tells GERRY THORNLEYhe doesn't believe in doing things by half measures

LAST SUMMER, John Fogarty was on holidays with his wife Sinéad and daughter Katie in Portugal, lying on the beach and soaking up the rays. It was quality rest time, hard earned and well deserved, and yet last season kept nagging at him. In fact, it annoyed him.

At 31, and having just arrived from three seasons in Connacht, Fogarty had settled into life as a reservist at Leinster last season; an active back-up to Bernard Jackman admittedly, but a reservist nonetheless.

“It annoyed me that I didn’t come and rip the heads off people. Did I stand off a bit? Did I not talk enough? Little things like that. And it annoyed me when I was on holidays sitting there thinking about rugby and that I hadn’t stepped fully into it. At least have a crack. Don’t die wondering, that’s something I say to myself. Don’t half do things or don’t die wondering. Let’s just have a go and who knows?

“So this season when I came back I didn’t care about anything. It can be a bit intimidating when you’re stepping into a big team and maybe it was a bit intimidating but I’m old enough and around long enough not to be intimidated. So when I came back this season I just jumped in.”

Not that Fogarty still didn’t enjoy his first season with Leinster. After all, he played in 18 games overall, including the last quarters of both the momentous semi-final against his native Munster and final against Leicester. He’d also like to think he’s still a young 32, and touches one of the wooden window stills in the Old Wesley clubhouse when noting he’s avoided bad injuries, before joking: “I’m not too fast, I’m not too strong so I’ve never torn things! But I’ve always enjoyed the fitness side of things.”

Fogarty strives to work harder than anyone, or at any rate as hard as Shane Jennings, if possible, and to make Leinster’s set-pieces as good as they can be. To this end, Leo Cullen has been a diamond to work with.

But being surrounded by so many quality players also reduces the pressure on him. “I don’t have to do extra things. I need to do my job really, really well and there’s a role for everybody in the team. That’s all you can do and if everyone does that in a team you’ll be all right.”

Given he’s the first-choice hooker with the European champions/semi-finalists and League leaders, he’d be entitled to some disgruntlement at not yet making his international breakthrough. For as he notes himself with gleeful self-deprecation: “There was a hooker crisis, and not even a sniff! Ah God, I think if I was younger maybe I’d be furious.

“I love playing for Leinster. I get such enjoyment and pleasure out of it. I thought myself I could have a crack here (with Ireland). So there was some disappointment, yeah. But I wasn’t pointing fingers or blaming anyone or the lads that played, they were picked ahead of me and that’s it.”

He’s asked the Irish management where he needs to improve and has resolved to augment his other work by getting on the ball more. Fogarty appreciates that, because of where we are in a World Cup cycle, his age counted against him, but as long as he’s still doing his stuff with Leinster – and he has recently signed a new two-year deal – then he’ll always have his hopes.

He feels fresh. Last season was like a whole new start to his career, and so it’s been again this season. “I’m stupidly optimistic sometimes about things,” he says, and so there’s “no chance” of giving up on that ambition.

Besides, he’s plenty to be going on with. “We’re playing in Europe in a semi-final. If you’re not up for that, if you’re not fresh for starting for Leinster in this kind of a game?” The question answers itself.

He’s regularly had to take the rough with the smooth. A decade ago he began his professional career with three unfulfilling seasons at Munster. “I wasn’t used in Munster because, probably, I was immature and not playing great rugby . . . I’ve no problem saying that. I probably didn’t appreciate it enough and took the little things for granted, the training and I wasn’t focused. I had the concentration of a wasp. I needed to be full-on and more serious.

“So no one to blame but myself. I didn’t make enough of an impact and it’s as simple as that.”

The five seasons at Connacht, where he played 110 competitive games, was the making of him. “I really started thinking about lineouts and all these little things and it developed me, it gave me a bit of a hard edge, because if you’re losing more than winning you have to keep yourself very positive.”

Thus, going back to Thomond Park recently and finishing on the winning side against his brother Denis was especially sweet, though he had less luck returning to Galway 10 days ago. “They beat the s**t out of us. It was really hard. I could never win anything at Connacht, and now that I’ve gone there I haven’t won. Two years in a row,” he notes dryly.

Cork-born, Tipperary-reared and Rockwell-educated, he brings a mustard-keen work ethic and unquenchable desire to ring every last drop out of his career. He also brings that Connacht us-against-the-world chip on his shoulder and now, though his brother Denis could be a potential foe in the final and all his family are Munster through and through, he’s a die-hard blue.

“I want to mark my stamp on Leinster by being involved, starting in a semi-final and hopefully getting through it and I love it. And even though my family hate that, sure half of Sinéad’s family are all from Kildare, so we’re all right.”

He points out that Leinster have been playing knock-out rugby since snookering themselves with their opening night home defeat to London Irish, which puts them in a good place mentally today. Now comes Toulouse, the acid test.

“They’re just basically taking you on at the basics of rugby.”

He talks about coming up against William Servat, a name he would have talked about like “a punter in a pub”.

The way he describes it, it’s the biggest game of his career. “Now I get to have a crack and I can’t wait. It’s a great week for everyone in Leinster; it’s great for me to be involved in this type of a game, because this is my first semi-final starting.

“It’s where you want to be. So brilliant, and I’m glad I’m 32 now and not 23 and s******g myself about William Servat! You know? Happy days.”