Positive, poised and eager to impress

IRELAND v FIJI: GERRY THORNLEYtalks to the versatile Keith Earls who, having impressed on the Lions tour to South Africa, is ready to stake a claim for his place on the Irish team

DECLAN KIDNEY has been gently chiding Keith Earls lately that he is the new Colm Tucker of Irish rugby, in that he has played more for the Lions than he has for Ireland. Tucker, who toured South Africa in 1980 with the Lions, was the first player ever to be capped by them before playing for his country, and though Earls didn't quite emulate that achievement, the comparison has some validity.

Although Earls had two caps when bolting into the Lions, today he wins his fourth cap whereas he has played five times in South Africa. Understandably therefore, the learning curve was steepest last summer.

"Obviously I had my ups and downs, but overall I think it was a brilliant experience for me mentally more than anything. I'm more confident now and I can relax before games. Yeah, definitely, I learnt a lot mentally from that tour."

Earls' tour was unhinged somewhat in the harshest of Lions' debuts in the opener against the Royal XV. He wasn't alone in looking uncomfortable in the thin air of the high veldt, but four knock-ons inside the half-hour appeared to betray nerves. To recover as he did, scoring a try in his next outing against the Free State Cheetahs and in his fifth and final outing, the draw with the Emerging Springboks, underlined his resilience and ability.

Earls doesn't use an early shoulder injury in the Royals game as an excuse but, as it transpires, his highly strung state was more down to anxiousness than nerves; or at any rate a desire to prove a detractor from the British media wrong.

"I read a magazine before we played the first game and it was about errors in Lions selection and it was talking about me and Alan Quinlan. I went out trying to prove him wrong, and trying to score every time I touched the ball or trying to do something spectacular instead of just easing myself into the game, and obviously it didn't go my way."

So, read less before games?

"Or don't read it at all," he says. "I don't read now really any more. It's something that Pádraig Harrington said to us when he came in last year. He read something when he was 18 and it just got to him, and he just gave up reading papers. I'd maybe pick up the odd one or two."

Coming out of that first game, Earls admits: "I beat myself up for one or two days after it."

Chats with trusted Munster confidantes Paul O'Connell and Ronan O'Gara, as well as Brian O'Driscoll, helped, as did a conversation with Rob Kearney.

"It was brilliant hearing it from someone nearly my own age and how confident he is and I just learned to relax, it's only a game of rugby. It is the Lions, but I just had to play like it was Thomond under-age and just enjoy it."

"I was really nervous before the second game as well. I'm always thinking negative and I struggled with confidence back then, but it was good. I got my first touch, went into a ruck and got it back, and then the try - James Hook's lovely kick and catch and gather. My confidence built up after that."

After also showing up well at centre and at full-back in the wins over Western province and the Southern Sharks, the highlight was, undoubtedly, playing for the Lions in front of his father, Ger - some recompense for the former Young Munster and Munster openside, widely regarded amongst his peers as one of the best players, and possibly the best, never to have played for Ireland.

Ger travelled out for the last week, taking in the second and third Tests and, more importantly, that final midweek game against the Emerging Springboks. "That always sticks in the back of my mind; at least he can say now, and I can say now, that he's been to South Africa and he's seen me play for the Lions, which is kind of cool.

You feared for Earls on that truly horrible night in Newlands. It was not exactly a night for full-backs. Perched uneasily in the top tier of the stands you sometimes had to hold on to your laptop, never mind your pad. Yet Earls, especially, Luke Fitzgerald and Shane Williams bravely withstood a fierce aerial bombardment from Earl Rose and co, and ultimately two of the stand-out memories were of his ability to beat his man one-on-one off either foot.

One took the breath away, the other was the step inside scrum-half Jano Vermaak for his second Lions try and 13th of a remarkable 25-game season.

"It was a dirty night, it was like playing in the Magners League," chuckles Earls. "But it was good because they were a big team, and it was like a fourth 'Test', so it was nice to get a try against them. But the draw wasn't what we wanted."

It's given him a taste for more. He enjoyed the craic off the pitch, and says it was as if they'd been together for years. A little star-struck at first, he gradually felt more and more a part of things, and Warren Gatland, for one, was hugely taken at the way Earls seemed to grow on and off the pitch, as well as his footwork and pace.

The improvements in Earls' game were more mental than technical, but he picked up a few things, as much from training as playing; watching Lee Byrne's lines of running, his work off the ball and positioning, and likewise the centres.

Earls became particularly good mates with Mike Blair, whom he roomed with for the last week-and-a-half. They exchanged Limerick and Scottish slang and went on to You-tube to teach each other respective rebel songs.

"We nearly had a karaoke one night, singing Scottish and Irish songs; it was brilliant. Strange too. Growing up I watched him playing in the Six Nations and here I was, friends with him. We text each other now a bit, his wife is expecting a baby in December."

When Munster travelled to Edinburgh for a Magners League game in October they exchanged a few winks and laughs, and enjoyed having a good go off each other too.

It had been, to all intents and purposes, a remarkable rookie year which began with a try-scoring competitive debut away to Edinburgh the previous September.

"I went to Miami and New York for a holiday. I was in Miami for five days and the weather wasn't great; we had one or two days of sunshine on the beach. It was incredible thinking back. I was pinching myself 'what a year'."

After his ten-day sojourn to America and intense eleven-month season, Earls was more than happy to spend the rest of his three-and-a-half weeks' holidays back in Limerick with mates, some outside of rugby.

"I loved that about it - you're away so long, to then go back and have a few beers in the local with mates who you don't see as much as you'd want to."

At the start of the season he felt both refreshed, and, after what he came through in South Africa, more confident than ever. It felt good looking at the Munster squad noticeboard during pre-season in the UL. There he was, in with O'Connell and co, as part of the timetable for the returning Lions.

This evening represents a big opportunity for Earls, one that probably would have been afforded him anyway, but has been magnified by the knee ligament injury to befall his contemporary and friend Luke Fitzgerald.

He was 'under the knife' as Earls spoke, and, expressing his belief that Fitzgerald will come back better than ever, there's a look of genuine sadness in Earls' eyes.

"He was coming into form as well and doing extremely well with Leinster. Even on Sunday he looked dangerous whenever he was on the ball. I suppose that's the game then as well, isn't it?"

Indeed, it's the life and an ultra-physical game they live, all of them subconsciously aware that they can all be one moment away from an injury.

Fitzgerald had said that he was using the disappointment of being dropped for the third Test dead rubber as a positive, in much the way Earls has been intending to do.

"I think he should have been there for the whole three Tests to be honest with you; he's a lot more to offer than the other players. It was a bit of a kick for me too when they put Tommy Bowe in at 13 for the third Test. They said 'we don't see you as a 13, we see you as a full-back.' Now with Munster I'm playing on the wing," he notes.

He accepts what's best for the team, that "Paul Warwick is playing outstandingly well at full-back and he takes a lot of pressure off Rog being an outhalf as well".

Earls was full-back in his seasonal reappearance, the defeat at the RDS to Leinster, but on the left wing in his subsequent four outings, and is a little weary, or at any rate wary, of becoming a jack of all trades and master of none.

He's looked sharp - you think of that daring counterattack on the outside and kick ahead for David Wallace's try in Northampton. But like most wingers around, the ball hasn't been coming his way too often.

"I don't want to be a utility back. You could end up being a 22. I don't want that. Playing rugby is what it's all about and I want ball in hand. I just want to run at teams. Hopefully, as I learn the position (of wing) I'll get my hands on the ball more. It's just hard when I think of the success I had this time last year and I had a couple of tries (four, to be exact). I've only got one try this year and I'm not touching the ball as much. Hopefully that try against Ulster will lead to a few more."

Earls is a polite, pleasant, respectful young lad, and avid student of the game who has the ability to be a huge star of Munster and Irish rugby for years to come.

Thus it almost comes as a surprise that such a free-spirited runner on the pitch is, by inclination, an awful old worrier, and suffered from self-doubt. But this season his confidence has never been stronger, which he attributes to the influence of the Munster psychiatrist Gerry Hussey.

"I've had a few meetings with him and now I'm actually excited for games. I don't feel nervous. I just want to go out and play the games in the same way I have been since I was eight years of change, And off-the-pitch too. Positive thinking makes you happy and healthy, and that's what I'm trying to do in the last couple of months."

Ireland is still relatively unfamiliar terrain, and perhaps all the more so as the only non-Munsterman in an otherwise all-Leinster backline, which is playing at the RDS, which has been ammunition for banter by Kidney.

"It's a situation I thought I'd never be in," says Earls with a smile. "It's good to play with the lads, and get to know them a bit better and stuff, and how they play. I'm delighted for Johnny (Sexton) getting his first start and stuff. I played with him on the 'A's. It should be good, but it's a bit strange alright," he adds, smiling again.

"Like, being in the huddle at training, and looking around, I was like 'where's Rog or Tomás or someone?'"

On the face of it, it's a banana skin in a slightly unreal Test scenario, in conditions not likely to be ideal for outside backs, and against utterly unpredictable opponents.

"Their second-rows are like wingers or a full-back. They're able to play.

"That's something we have to be careful of, the broken play. They're specialists in the game of sevens. It's going to be a tough game and you have to show them respect."

Opportunity knocks and, you'd like things, some running opportunities come his way.

"Stay relaxed, go out and play rugby, and keep giving Deccie a headache. I can't wait for the challenge."

"I don't want to be a utility back. You could end up being a 22. I don't want that. Playing rugby is what it's all about and I want ball in hand. I just want to run at teams.

DOB: Oct 2nd, 1987

Birthplace: Moyross

Height: 1.80m (5ft 11in)

Weight: 90kg (14st 1lb)

Club: Young Munster

Position: Wing, centre, fullback

Honours: Munster 24 games (11 tries), + 2 as a replacement, Ireland (3 caps, 1 try) and the Lions (5 appearances, 2 tries).