Gearing up to lay down the law

Interview Ireland prop Marcus HoranThose looking for the reflection of Reggie Corrigan in Marcus Horan will see only disappointment. Horan is not Corrigan. There has been no conceit that he is. The four-times capped loosehead prop has been recently damned by faint praise and circumspect analysis in the run-in to what will be his first Six Nations start.

Last Sunday he was to be found in the maw of at least one newspaper columnist. Took a terrible mauling.

Some have pointed to his exceptional talent in the loose, his speed and ball carrying, his off-pitch affability. They have looked around and seen positive things but have avoided the cavil of the set scrum. It is there Horan will want to hold his ground. It is there the 26-year-old is aching to show how the long years in the slipstream of Peter Clohessy have paid off.

There is a striking sincerity about the imperatives Horan has set for himself, vehemence about what he must do. And the days are eating him up. If he could wish Saturday now he'd rub the lamp and blissfully face the physical challenge out on Citywest's first tee-box.

In the background Corrigan's shadow is cast large over the front row as a player who has travelled further in the last year than he has in the previous five. Seven years younger than Corrigan and 15 caps less experience, the Limerick prop sees the French front row as a challenge, a juicy one. Perhaps unjustly Horan has been prejudged. Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan believes he will meet the challenge.

"Probably Marcus didn't get as much exposure behind Peter Clohessy than he might have but he's a very good rugby player," says the coach. "I've no real concerns about him on Saturday. He did a fine job this year for Munster in the European Cup and he's very good around the field. He's very quick and he's got great skills. I suppose he's under-rated as a scrummager because of his size. He's not the biggest prop you'll ever see but technically he's very good and he's a lot stronger than he looks. I've never seen him not hold up his end of the deal in a scrum."

Horan's first two caps straddled the years between the USA in 2000 and Fiji in 2002. His replacement appearances against Scotland and Italy were not unforeseen but Corrigan's injury is demanding more, even asking him to set his own agenda.

"Yeh, it is a big occasion for me," he says. "It would have been nicer under better circumstances. You gotta feel for Reggie but one man's misfortune is another man's gain and I've just got to take the chance. In Italy when he came back from the hospital with his arm in plaster, I went up to commiserate with him. He wished me the best of luck. It's a matter now of doing justice to the jersey."

Horan's rugby record is a picture postcard. As a kid at St Munchin's, his dad used to drive him to rugby training at Shannon from the town of Clonlara, seven miles from Limerick. On the way they'd often pick up a promising local lad with his thumb out. If he wasn't hitching, Keith Wood would be on his bike.

"I was about 12 or 13. We used to bring Woody to training when he was playing for Shannon but when he switched to Garryowen we put a stop to that," says Horan.

After his underage days it was watching The Claw, perhaps for too long. In recent years he made a point of observing the old warrior closely. Truth was Clohessy didn't say much anyway.

The French, of course, know Clohessy, not his understudy. It won't matter . The lines of combat have been drawn years ago and set in stone. It's never pretty.

"The French have a really strong front row and it will be a case of us hitting them as hard as they hit us," says Horan. "It is important for us to try to become a pack that are feared around the world, rather than a pack that will pull out a good performance now and then. The most important thing is to get the first hit in, or the first scrum in. With that you can lay down the law for the rest of the game. It's a big psychological battle and if you get on top early you can really demoralise the opposition."

The message he is getting from management is basics first. If that's right Horan's dynamism could flourish.