McFadden eager to take centre stage

IT is fair to say Fergus McFadden has had more than his fair share of frustrations in his professional rugby career.

Missing an almost certain debut cap on the 2009 summer tour to North America, breaking his jaw a year later on the eve of the 2010 tour Down Under and having to fill in as required whenever opportunity arose in a multi-talented Leinster backline.

That’s enough setbacks for many a career, let alone the first couple of McFadden’s but the versatile back is, at 25, stronger for those experiences. Now that he is in Ireland’s World Cup squad he is finally in a position to say they were all worth it. Not that he is prepared to stop there.