Leamy ready to answer Ireland’s call

THE irony isn’t lost on the quietly spoken 23-year-old from Cashel. As he came up through the ranks at Rockwell College and later at UCC, Denis Leamy was lost in admiration of Anthony Foley’s qualities.

He appreciated them all the more when he became his Munster and Ireland teammate and readily admits to having learned a huge amount from the great Shannon man.

Therefore one suspects he is almost embarrassed at taking Foley’s place at No 8 in the side to meet New Zealand at Lansdowne Road tomorrow - not that it will prevent him from turning in the kind of performance that left Eddie O’Sullivan with little option but to find a place for him in the team.

The coach eventually settled on number eight and that meant Foley’s exclusion from the 22-strong squad. It can’t have been easy to take but typically, Foley was the first to offer his good wishes and, anyway, must have had an inkling of what was developing this week.

Leamy was played there at training during the week, an obvious pointer to the coach’s thinking. More at home of late at number six or seven, he isn’t fazed by the prospect of returning to the middle of the back-row where he was so influential for Rockwell, whom he steered to victory in Munster Schools Senior and Junior Cups.

He reckons his last game of significance at number eight was for Munster against Glasgow in a none too successful Celtic League game in mid-September but that doesn’t concern him. Relieving Anthony Foley of the Irish number eight jersey is, perhaps, another matter.

“I would have to say that growing up, ‘Axel’ was always somebody I looked up to,” he acknowledges.

“I get on very well with him and it’s very hard for me to take his position. But he has wished me the best of luck and I appreciate that. He’s a good guy and he’s always helped me whenever I needed help. He’s a legend in Munster and Irish rugby and his are big shoes to fill. I’ve had a chat with him and he’s always very good with his advice.

“Coming up, I didn’t know what to expect. Things had been going pretty well for me in the past couple of games and I was more hoping than expecting anything. Whatever position you’re put in at training, you think you might be put in there in the match itself and you just train your hardest.”

Leamy’s inclusion in the side didn’t come as much of a surprise considering how well he has been performing for Munster. However, with the Lansdowne Road pitch likely to be heavy and bearing in mind Foley’s experience, it looked as if he would have to search elsewhere for a place.

But Eddie O’Sullivan had no hesitation in trusting him to fill the number eight spot. “Denis is a very good footballer and is well capable of making the adjustment from the flank to number eight where he has played many times in the past. He will pack down at number eight in the scrum but will otherwise play his normal game. We have seen this in other international back-rows. Even George Smith has played at eight for Australia.”

Nevertheless, this game promises to be a very stern test given the presence in the All Black back-row of Richie McCaw, one of the greatest of all number sevens and a man keen to do extra well having been handed the captaincy of the All Blacks side.

Leamy doesn’t hide from the extent of the challenge that lies ahead for himself and Johnny O’Connor.

“Obviously, McCaw’s an outstanding player, so it’s going to be a big job to keep him under wraps, to prevent him from slowing down ruck ball. We will be looking at the videos and try to learn a bit more about him,” said Leamy.

Now that he has re-established himself in the starting line-up, Leamy is desperate to turn in the kind of performance that will help to keep him there for the long term, his prospects helped by the dedicated work he has put in on and off the pitch.

“Being dropped after the Italy game last season was very disappointing but it’s all part of the learning curve,” he observed.

“The worst part was that I picked up an injury a couple of weeks later that kept me out for two months so I didn’t really have the chance to redeem myself. It’s hard when you’re injured to watch a lot of guys do well in your position but now I’m getting a chance to start again this week and so have an opportunity to put a few things to rest.

“With due respects to the international teams I have played against (USA, Italy and Japan), they wouldn’t be as physically strong or as talented as New Zealand. Even so, they were tough enough games and were probably a step up and no doubt this is going to be a step up again.

“I imagine the pace will be a lot hotter for one thing. I have studied videos to try and learn more and more, my running lines are a lot better than what they were. Before I was probably taking the wrong route to get to rucks. Now my lines off scrums and line-outs are much better and that makes it a lot easier when you know where you need to be off first phase. That’s probably the big lesson I’ve learned.”

The back-row is one area of the Munster and Ireland set-ups where there is absolutely no shortage of talent. When you consider that Alan Quinlan wasn’t considered because of injury, that Foley was dropped from the 22 and the likes of David Wallace and Keith Gleeson weren’t even considered, you readily appreciate just what Leamy, Simon Easterby and Johnny O’Connor have to produce if they are to stay in favour. And then there’s the added piquancy that Leamy and O’Connor battled it out between themselves for the number seven jersey last season and now they find themselves in the same unit.

“Most of us in the back-row have been in opposition since we started to play the game so there’s nothing new in that,” Leamy says.

This time, though, they are allies and a lot will depend on how they fare against McCaw and company if Ireland are to realise an age-old ambition of beating the All Blacks.