Tadhg Furlong hoping to play part in Paris mission

Mike Ross has, at least, another week rehabbing at Leinster, Marty Moore is out with a hamstring injury for the entire Six Nations stretch and Nathan White suffered horribly in the scrum during last Sunday’s draw with Wales.

Whatever way you cut it, Tadhg Furlong can’t be all that far away from a starting spot in Paris this weekend when Ireland take on the French and yet the feeling abroad is White’s greater experience will secure him a second start in successive weeks.

It’s a reasonable point of view.

Furlong has featured just 40 times for Leinster with only the one European start, against Bath last month in a dead rubber, among them. His four Ireland caps have amounted to just 65 combined minutes with more than half that secured in World Cup warm-ups.

A start on Saturday would mark a quantum leap for the Wexford man then, though he is 15 months removed from his first Ireland camp and pokes holes in the age-old argument positing that places like Paris may be a start too soon for a 23-year old prop.

“The two Welsh props that were starting for Wales at the weekend, Samson (Lee) and Rob (Evans), are both in my age group, in their 20s, so is the landscape changing in terms of blooding front-rows earlier? I don’t know,” he asked.

“But if you said to me a few years ago, just after that 20s World Cup that the three of us were in, that we’d be going to the World Cup and playing your first Six Nations game at the weekend, I would have felt it hard to believe you.

“But that’s the way sport is. You get your chance and you have to take it. I suppose getting your chance last weekend, it only tries to spur you on now and make you more determined to keep getting to that level and keep playing to that level.”

He was happy enough with efforts over 16 minutes against Wales. Most of his time on the pitch was spent defending, but he showed a different skill set when firing out a pass to CJ Stander from the base of a scrum perilously close to the Irish try line.

“I suppose I would have been nervous if it had been a 15-metre pass, but I was lucky CJ was only about two metres away. That settled me down a small bit. I suppose it’s something I’ve been comfortable with.”

The Stade de France will likely pit Ireland’s starting tighthead against Eddy Ben Arous, a loosehead with “a wicked step on him and a good hand-off, very dangerous over the ball and lightning quick” but the assignment in general is not the tall order of days before.

France haven’t beaten Ireland in five attempts and the last two assignments in Saint-Denis have resulted in an away win and a draw. It is a long way removed the days in the early noughties when Furlong’s dad used to snaffle the odd ticket for them to watch Ireland at the old Lansdowne Road.

So, does the French capital hold that same old fear now?

“It’s tough for me to comment on that because I’ve never gone to Paris before. I don’t know what those Irish teams 10 years ago felt, although you probably would have heard that when you were sitting at home watching on television. The Paris factor.

“I don’t know. We’re all very excited going over and the challenge that’s ahead. I’m sure they’ll be ready to rock in Paris when we come there. Look, there’s not that fear, there’s just excitement, getting ready to go out there and perform.”