Toner keeps competition at arm’s length

Devin Toner will likely earn his 200th Leinster cap this Friday evening when Cardiff come to the RDS and the memory of his first appearance in January of 2006 hasn’t been compromised by the passing years and the litany of events since.

“Yeah, Border Reivers,” he said yesterday with a smile. “Myself and Sexto came off the bench, in Donnybrook, and we won by a fair bit. I don’t remember the score. Who did I replace? Was it … Adam Byrne?” It was. And the score was 62-14. Toner was allowed 15 minutes by Michael Cheika that evening, Johnny Sexton bagged the grand total of eight. A crowd of 4,125 took it all in, oblivious to the divergent paths that lay ahead for all concerned. For the Reivers, the road would come to an abrupt end with disbandment within 18 months. Toner and Sexton would go on to construct careers of impressive stature while Leinster would undergo major upgrades on and off the park.

“It’s been a long road, I suppose. It doesn’t feel that long. It feels as if it has flown by but, looking back at the caps I was getting each season, it was two, then three, then four and five and then 17, 18 and up to 30. So it gradually got there.

“Leinster put a lot of faith in me when I was coming out of the academy. I did a lot of work myself but ... the young lads coming out of the academy are far more advanced than I was. They seem to be ready a lot younger.

“Like, I didn’t know my body shape. I was bent in rucks, bent in the scrum and I didn’t know how to get straight or low or how to use my size, I suppose. I learned over the years to use it. I didn’t think I was very impactful, that I drifted a bit. Hopefully I’m a bit better now.”

Toner’s evolution is ongoing. He tipped the scales at 131 kilos during the summer but that’s down to 125 now as he looks to make himself more mobile about the field and keep at arm’s length the extra competition for places in the second row.

Ex-Wallaby Scott Fardy made his first competitive start for the province in Saturday’s bonus point win away to Bernard Jackman’s Dragons and the highly-rated James Ryan came off the bench to make his senior debut too.

He first saw Ryan when the latter was Ireland U20s captain and Toner, still Joe Schmidt’s go-to guy in the second row for Ireland, has looked on from afar as the 20-year-old suffered, and recovered from, a bad hamstring injury that cost him a year of his career.

A “special player”, Ryan was called up for the senior Ireland team’s summer tour, on which he earned two caps, although Toner feels the Blackrock graduate may find game time harder to come by when the national side is at full strength.

“There’s a huge amount of competition. There is obviously stuff he needs to work on, stuff he needs to get his head around. There’s differences if you’re a (lineout) calling lock or a non-calling lock.

“He can do both but he needs to work on the calling a little bit more. It’s just that confidence, but if that confidence grows and he starts playing an awful lot you never know these days because the younger players are getting better.”

Ryan’s progress may be halted temporarily by a shoulder injury picked up against the Dragons. Dave Kearney, Jordi Murphy, Fergus McFadden and Joey Carbery are all being assessed after minor injuries this week too.

Jamie Heaslip is also back training and being monitored.