James Lowe much more than a joker in the Leinster pack

This requires a scene setter. Leinster scrumhalf Luke McGrath and outhalf Ross Byrne are at the other end of the table, away from the group but within ear shot and sniggering.

James Lowe is talking. A latter day Manfred von Richthofen he's strafing the Leinster team. The Six Nations, Sean O'Brien, Johnny Sexton, schools rugby, they are all getting a load and the two lads' shoulders are heaving up and down.

A straight-talking Kiwi with a sense of fun, there are no sacred cows today remaining intact. Lowe is blazing out of the clouds.

“I’ve got to be careful,” he says when asked what he thinks of the Northern Hemisphere championship. “Growing up Six Nations meant nothing to me.

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“But now being over here I see how passionate the boys are. The boys give shit to Seán O’Brien. They say ‘he doesn’t play Pro14. He’s waiting for the Six Nations’.

“It is pressure footie and it’s exciting to see the boys doing well. . .

“Johnny hit that ridiculous drop goal the other day,” he adds inviting the Irish outhalf and his winning kick against France into the conversation.

“And he keeps on talking about it. You guys might not hear it. But he talks.”

Lowe is the last player to get into the Irish set-up with the three years rule for residency. Pushed heavily by former Argentina scrumhalf Augustin Pichot, it has since risen to five years before players can become resident and qualify to play for their adopted country.

He is free-spirited about the whole thing despite the recent experience of Bundee Aki. The Irish centre took the brunt of criticism when he was picked as a residency player.

“Now they aren’t, are they? I don’t see them complaining anymore,” quips Lowe acknowledging Aki’s seamless transition to international level.

“ I don’t know the people personally, I mean I know Bundee personally from playing with him back home. But I guess they would have had the argument with CJ Stander and players like that. I don’t see anyone complaining any more when they start playing well in a green jersey.”

Now, he says Dublin is an exciting, foreign place for him. He’s here to enjoy life, taking it all in, trying to get his defence right, learn the Leinster system. None of it seems remotely troubling.

Exchange rate

A straight shooter, a guy out to do the best he can, embracing the risk of moving to the other end of the planet. Ben Te’o had a similar outlook.

“I guess once you get past that stage, when playing for the All Blacks isn’t the ultimate goal, you’ve got to think down the line. Financially, it’s a lot nicer, especially with the exchange rate, to come over here,” he says, perhaps provocatively.

“Instead of doing it for three or four years at the end of my career, if I can do it for ten and set myself up. Why wouldn’t you do it?”

Lowe then shoots a glance towards Byrne and McGrath, chuckle brothers united.

“I don’t need a degree to figure it out either lads,” he says. “These lads are studying bloody 40 hours a week.”

Despite hitting the ground in Dublin running with his two-try man of the match performance in Benetton last December, Lowe was not registered by Leinster for the European Champions Cup. For that to happen he had to displace one of a number of an Irish international players. He talks of Rob and Dave Kearney, Fergus McFadden, all players that newcomer Jordi Larmour can learn from.

“How old is Jordan? He’s 20. That’s freakish,” he says. “If I was 20 and playing that good I’d be soaking up everything – not from me.”

He then turns and looks towards the former St Michaels’ outhalf and the former St Michaels’ scrumhalf. “Yeah, Jordan is good. He’s a little bit of a freak. He’s a good kid who went to a good school [St Andrews] over here.”

Behind it all Lowe is serious. He is a willing and giving player and a mood breaker and maker in the team environment. He has to learn defence. He knows that. And do it without burning off any of his vitality and high-energy strike power on the pitch.

“I’m trying to fit in. To me, we just pick a man and try to smash them,” he says of New Zealand. “Over here, it’s sort of ‘sit off and wait, sit off and wait’.

Fergus McFadden then figuratively wanders onto the stage.

“Defence is his best asset,” says Lowe. “He never does anything wrong. I guess that’s something I’ve really struggled with over here, in terms of like a different system. And he wears a headband. I don’t know why. Man, he’s a bit of a freak.”

– The Leinster players spoke as guests of CityJet, official airline of Leinster rugby.