Best to come from reprieved Rory
Both had just dodged a bullet, and both knew it.
Having replaced the injured Jerry Flannery for last autumn’s November internationals, Rory Best had held onto the number 2 jersey on the Irish team to face Wales in Cardiff on Sunday. That’s the same Jerry Flannery, despite not having yet played a full match following his return from that injury, who had just edged out his Munster team-mate Frankie Sheehan for the spot on the bench.
The amiable Best was especially pleased. “I’m very happy,” he grinned. “I knew it was always going to be tight when you have two very good hookers in Frankie and Jerry. I was delighted whenever my name was called out.”
It’s been a pretty meteoric rise for the 24-year-old Ulster man, a rise even more impressive than that of Flannery’s last season.
Those in the know had seen the Munster man coming for a while, his barnstorming performances for Shannon catching the eye week in, week out in the AIL; an injury to Frankie Sheehan, however, opened the door for him at both provincial and national level, and how Flannery responded.
A near-unanimous choice at hooker in the 2006 Six-Nations ‘Dream Team’, he was an instant success, and looked set to hold the shirt for many years to come. And then, irony of ironies, injury struck again. This time Flannery was the victim, and Best was the beneficiary.
And again, how the new man responded. Two huge performances in two consecutive wins against South Africa and Australia, and the powerful Best was in the driving seat. There he has stayed, despite the fact that Ulster’s Heineken Cup form dipped in the weeks since. Given that fact, and Flannery’s impressive return to Munster action, Rory was a worried man when it came to that team announcement.
“Yeah, you’re always fearful about that,” he admitted. “Ulster started very well with that opening win against Toulouse but then dipped. You’re always worried, when you see Munster and Leinster going so well you start thinking: ‘These guys are playing well.’ But it’s not something you can do anything about. Thankfully I’m not the Irish coach, I don’t have to make these hard decisions!”
And he has worked hard. A renowned scrummager and a good dart-thrower, putting himself about the park in the loose wasn’t exactly Rory’s forte. Young as he was, however, and a testament to his ambition and his determination, he quickly recognised his own weakness and resolved to do something about it.
“The way Jerry came through last year, showed up a lot in the loose — I knew this was a part of my game I was really going to have to work on, and I did. Over the preseason and into this current season, that’s something I’ve worked very hard on in Ulster, concentrating on my speed, the power side of things, becoming a bit more dynamic in the loose.
“I knew it was there, a couple of pieces I wanted to put in place to bring it to the level I wanted; I worked hard on that, to keep trying to add another string to my bow. There’s still a lot more hard work ahead; the time you start sitting back and patting yourself on the back is the time you’ll slip, and you may not be able to get it back again. But it’s something that’s starting to tell, in the last four or five games especially.”
It certainly is, to the point where Best now looks more than comfortable on the ball.
“Everyone wants to carry the ball and be as confrontational as possible. Obviously you can’t do that the whole time, you have to get into the nitty-gritty — which I love as well — but there’s nothing better than getting your hands on the ball.”
He’ll be under pressure Sunday. In fact Best will be under pressure every time he pulls on that number 2 shirt, given the ability of those two behind him. As if that isn’t bad enough, he and his front-row colleagues will be under additional pressure from a critical media, across the pond especially. Given the pounding the Munster scrum took against Leicester, given that the two Munster props from that evening, John Hayes and Marcus Horan, will be on either side of him this weekend, what’s Rory’s view?
“That was a very powerful Leicester scrum with a lot of top internationals in there. I really enjoy packing down beside the two boys. They’re great scrummagers and great players. A lot of the criticism they’ve come under hasn’t been justified. They’re both strong boys; if we can get low as a unit, get across that line in the scrums, I don’t think we’ll have any problems.”
How difficult is it for a hooker to adapt to two new props in a matter of weeks?
“It’s a bit rusty when you first go in but everyone is very adaptable, you can pick it up quite quickly with a couple of scrums. That’s what we did last week. We got rid of as much rustiness as we could in both scrum and lineout. I hadn’t thrown to Paul or Donncha since the autumn or scrummaged with John and Marcus. So it takes a few days to knock out the dints.”
Mention of Paul O’Connell, of Donncha O’Callaghan, the two second-rows, brings a smile to Rory’s face.
“One of the best lineout jumpers in the world,” he says of O’Connell, “And Donncha is almost on a par with him. If you look at the Welsh teams in the Magners League they’re very good in the lineout, both in attack and defence. We’ll do our homework on them, put a plan in place to take their lineout apart both in attack and defence.”
Make no mistake, there are those who begrudge Best his place in this Irish team, those who feel that Jerry Flannery or Frankie Sheehan would have been a better choice, and Best himself accepts the merit in those arguments. Make no mistake either, however — having grabbed his opportunity, Best is there on merit.
He has every reason to smile.
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