Keith Earls backs Garry Ringrose as he faces the Brian O’Driscoll Ringer

Keith Earls was one of the first Irish backs to be landed with the dubious honour of being ‘the next Brian O’Driscoll’, so his first emotion when Garry Ringrose was slapped with the same tag was one of avuncular concern.

For Earls, such talk had been a millstone around his neck, an unwanted burden on a pair of shoulders that was already feeling the weight of expectation after a blistering start to a career that earned him a Lions call-up six months after his 21st birthday.

“When Ringer was coming through and he was being compared to Drico I remember saying, ‘oh god, that poor young fella’. I said, ‘there’s nothing worse than that, you just need to leave him be himself’,” he explains.