Called up for your country

After years of slogging your guts out every weekend and having nothing to show for it but a bashed face and heavy limp on Monday morning, the reward you always craved has come: you've been called up to play for Ireland in the Six Nations. But how does it work?

Who tells you you're in, where do you go, how are you introduced to the grizzled legends already in the team? How long do you have to learn the set plays, what do you do about kit and what dreadful initiation ritual is there to go through? Michael Moynihan found out.

THIS IS HOW IT WAS