Tadhg Furlong’s moods swung by lost scrums and cake

Tadhg Furlong. Loves Black Forest gateau, hates losing scrums.

It’s an uncomplicated approach and one entirely in keeping with the persona of one of the world’s best tighthead props and self-styled humble farmer from Wexford.

Furlong celebrated his 26th birthday yesterday with little fuss, imagining rather than eating a slice of his favourite cake as he spent his rest day away from Ireland’s training base Carton House, a brief respite from preparations for this Saturday’s showdown with New Zealand.

“I actually have lads coming to install a bit of home security for me, so I think I have to let them in and I think that’s about it,” Furlong said on Tuesday of his time off.

“I might be meeting up with one of the lads for lunch but I’ve nothing planned.

“I don’t have a birthday cake. Usually, here in Carton... it’s Rhys Ruddock’s birthday today and he got a massive cake brought out for him there.

“So I hope they have a sneaky cake for me tomorrow. I mightn’t eat it now, obviously, but if they brought me a Black Forest from that kitchen, I’d be incredibly happy.”

The flip side of the Furlong pleasure principle concerns the day job, a prop’s basic function and the impact it has on him if it isn’t executed to his satisfaction. For a player who does so many other aspects of the game to a similarly high standard as his scrummaging it does seem curious that an effective day around the pitch can be tarnished by a lost scrum.

“Yeah, it’s mad how much it affects your happiness if you win the game, it just nags at you and I suppose it’s your source of pride, really, how the scrum goes. There’s a lot more to the scrum than the tighthead and the front row and the back five, but as a tighthead, you have to take a lot of responsibility for it.

“Set piece is massive. Scrum, as a tighthead, it’s your bread and butter and I mightn’t be the flashiest scrummager or mightn’t be the most dominating scrummager at times but I feel like I can do a job there and it’s a massive test for me this weekend.

“You know, you get to test yourself against the best team in the world and on your own home patch. It’s a game that as a rugby player, you kind of live for, in some ways.”

If, as expected, Furlong is named at today’s team announcement, it will be his sixth meeting against the All Blacks, having played them twice in November 2016 and in all three Tests for the British & Irish Lions, collecting two wins and a draw. He may have turned 26 but Furlong is still relatively young for a Test tighthead and his prime is ahead of him.

“I think it is. Before I play a team, I like to look back at the last three/four times I played against them, watch clips back, and some of those clips from 2016, I’m going ‘Jesus what are you doing there’, I was sloppy, or slow to react. Or sometimes it works the other way, you think, that was really good, I went away from that, want to add that back into my game again.

“I think as a player, I’m a lot more comfortable in the environment, I’m definitely a lot more comfortable around the field; I’ve definitely improved a lot since then.”

That improvement has been necessary to Ireland’s success and it will be benchmarked once more this weekend against a formidable All Blacks scrummaging unit.

“When you look at the scrum, you don’t really look at the front row, you look at the pack. There definitely is a different style of scrumming between the northern hemisphere and the southern. They’re big men, of course, but the cohesion they have as a pack, from a coaching point of view, it’s really good, they are so solid on their entry all the time; particularly on opposition ball, the snap they generate is so strong, because they are so cohesive.

“Just look at it: their legs, boom, chase their feet, chase their feet. As a prop, you’re looking at it, thinking, that’s so pretty that’s good technique. That feeds into their front row, the amount of pressure they’re able to put against you.

“If you have any sort of a leaky joint, between me and the hooker, or between the hooker and the loosehead, or if chests are high… because they have that cohesion and power ‘the water is going to break’ that leaky joint. That power is going to dissipate somewhere, and you’re in trouble.

“And they are holding the ball in at the back for longer than I would have seen two years ago, or when I was looking at them for the Lions.

“They have that mindset where they are going after teams on opposition ball, and they’re also trying to hold it in and get penalties on their ball.”

It is an analysis that destroys the characterisation gleefully perpetuated by his captain and front-row partner Rory Best that the tighthead is a simple farmer from Wexford. Yet the New Ross native is happy to play along.

“I am. You can’t get slagged about something if it’s the truth, can you?”

“I’m an open book. What you see is what you get, so there’s not much to delve much further into.

“There’s nothing extraordinary here, just a humble farmer from Wexford.”

It almost works but the facade slips and Furlong adds: “Ah it’s just to wind up the lads really, it’s just a bit of craic.”