Toner’s ‘certain set of skills’

Devin Toner has never been one to get above himself.

Quietly-spoken and self-deprecating with it, the 6’ 10” lock is the first to admit that he isn’t what anyone would term a natural athlete. He is a product of an age when second rows were prized more for their beef than for their agility.

He is a different proposition to the more mobile, modern men who inhabit his neck of the woods — the Iain Hendersons and the James Ryans — but he is quick to state his own case in response to the suggestion that the game today may be passing his type by.