Fogarty fired up for Scarlets showdown
The day is wet, the pitch heavy and it isn’t long before the teams’ white and blue jerseys begin to morph into the one muddy uniform.
John Fogarty didn’t need to be there, he just wanted to be.
The province’s first-choice hooker this season, Fogarty had fallen between two stools the week before when concerns over Jerry Flannery’s fitness prior to the Australian Test saw him poached from the Irish ‘A’ squad.
When Flannery was ultimately passed fit, Fogarty was informed he wouldn’t be needed for the 22 in Croke Park on the Sunday and the As had already beaten Tonga in Ravenhill on the Friday night.
What to do?
With Leinster’s first-team in the midst of a mid-season hibernation, the obvious answer was to avail of the few days off. Instead, Fogarty rang Michael Cheika and put his hand up for the trip to Plymouth.
“I was mad to get in and play,” he admits. “If you are away for too long there are calls that change. Teams move on and you are always developing. Cheiks is one of these coaches that is always developing things and calls and all the rest of it. I didn’t want to lose touch with my bread and butter, my home, which is Leinster rugby.
“I wanted to play in an A match over in Plymouth Albion in the pouring rain. It was great to come back and play in it, genuinely. I think it helped (against the Scarlets) last week because calls were so much sharper in my head. Believe it or not, after three or four weeks, you can get muddled with plays in your head. At least forwards can anyway. To be involved last week from Monday to Saturday was brilliant.”
His eagerness is understandable.
The Tipperary man is 32 and it has taken him until this season to win a starting spot in a Heineken Cup team and secure his place in the foothills of the national squad’s base camp.
He started his professional odyssey with three years at Munster before a switch to Connacht that resulted in 83 appearances, 27 of which were in the European Challenge Cup. He joined Leinster in the summer of 2008.
He was honest in his reasoning behind that decision from the off. He wanted to taste the Heineken Cup, to test himself against the best and has managed to do just that. He came off the bench six times during last year’s European campaign and he has assumed the number two jersey from Bernard Jackman this term.
He started six games last season and had that matched by early October this time.
Happy days?
“Yeah, absolutely happy. You work hard to get into a good team and then you work twice as hard to get into the 22 and 15. We are having a battle, me and Birch (Jackman). We have been turning up each week and having a crack. We both want it. I am really glad that I got picked last week and I hope that I get picked this week. I am loving it, mad for it. I’m dying for rugby and playing at that level. At home now we will have how many thousands people for a Heineken Cup game? It’s great, happy out. Delirious.”
An Irish cap or two would be the cherry on top.
For a while there earlier this week, it looked like he may have taken a step closer to that goal when the unlucky Flannery picked up another injury in last weekend’s defeat of Perpignan at Thomond Park.
Thankfully, the word after the Munster man’s surgery on Wednesday was that the Achilles tendon injury would only keep him out for five weeks, which should be time enough for a clear run-in to the Six Nations.
Even still, opportunity make knock for Fogarty, his brother Denis or Sean Cronin who, with Rory Best out of action for the season, is currently first reserve in that department for Declan Kidney.
“If you said no, you weren’t aware, you’d be lying,” said Fogarty speaking prior to Flannery’s diagnosis, “but if my head was on that now, and thinking about that kind of stuff, I’d be stupid. All I’m thinking about is this weekend, that the lineouts are good, the scrums are right – my own performance and where it should be.”
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