Regime change comes at right time for Munster star Conway

ANDREW CONWAY is getting his due and it has been a long time coming.

The Ireland wing gets his first Six Nations start this evening as he pulls on the number 14 jersey to face Scotland in Dublin and though it is cap number 19 and he is 28, it has been no surprise to the Munster star that he has had to bide his time.

“It definitely feels like I’ve been chipping away for a fair amount of time,” Conway mused this week. “I knew that was going to be the case.

I had to stay consistent, stay persistent and just keep going by sticking to my processes and my workrate and the stuff you’re doing off the pitch to get better and eventually it will come around.

“So, yeah, it’s been a great week out in Portugal. We’ve trained really hard, there’s been a nice few changes with Andy coming in and steering the ship and it’s been really fresh and enjoyable.”

It does not take too much of a read between the lines to venture that the change in head coach from Joe Schmidt to Andy Farrell has suited Conway.

Many observers felt his electric form in 2019 merited more starts for Ireland, and watching his squad-mates go down to New Zealand in the World Cup quarter-final in Tokyo from the stands having scored a try in each of his three pool appearances, against Scotland, Russia and Samoa, must have been a difficult experience. Yet not unexpected.

“I kinda did know,” he said.

I’d been in the squad long enough under Joe to know how he selected and knowing the lads who had been there and done that before, unless they were injured or they were playing really really poorly, and I was playing… he had no choice other than to pick me.

“It was always going to be a tough ask to get in when the lads are fit. I don’t think that’s coming from a negative thought process. That was just a reality. I don’t necessarily think it was the wrong decision, it was just the way he approached selection.”

Conway came home from Japan content with his own contribution to the cause and buoyed by a chat with Farrell on the day Schmidt had explained to the wing his preference for Keith Earls and Jacob Stockdale as the starters to face the All Blacks.

“Faz just said he’d kept an eye on me during the session and ‘well done on training well and making sure the team was as prepared as possible’ which was really appreciated,” Conway told the Irish Examiner during an interview in November.

The past week has seen him pick on similarly good vibes from new attack coach Mike Catt.

“Yeah, brilliant. We’re only a week into working together so there’s a lot to learn and hopefully the relationship will blossom but one big thing he’s brought in is scanning, so something that we’re probably as Irish rugby players not very good at.

“We tend to focus on the ball, not look up and see what’s in front of us. With the Kiwis especially, having played with a few of them, Francis Saili was especially good at it a few years ago. I remember playing outside him and he used to be watching what the defence was doing as the ball was coming, then just take a little glance in and then watch again.

“So having the ability to do that, you actually have an understanding of what the defence is doing, as opposed to, ‘right, the defence is there’ and then I’m looking in at the ball and then you don’t know what the defence is doing and they’re coming hard.

“You have a bit of a feel for it but if you’re able to look and look and have that feel for it, which takes a while but that’s something we’re working on.

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“Timing onto the ball, not going too quick onto the ball and cutting off our other options, there’s loads of things, so we’re only dipping the toe in at the moment to Catty’s ideas but they’ve been the two big standouts where I feel we can see big improvements early.”

Conway is uncertain about how long it could take for these newly acquired skills to become instinctive but he knows the Ireland players will get there sooner rather than later.

“I think high balls were the worst thing in my game when I first came out of school. Isa Nacewa used to catch them for me back in the early days at Leinster. I just couldn’t. It’s just timing and repetition.

“It’s not even repetition... we did a few extras after training there and we were talking about what percentage we will go at. We were discussing that we would go at 100. Not killing each other but at 100 per cent intensity.

“There is no point really in doing anything outside of that because whenever you play the game, it’s at that intensity.

“So I suppose it is different for each person, but if you are really nailed on in your process after the session or whatever, that’s when you will acquire it easier than kind of chilling and hoping it will come to fruition.”

What Ireland supporters can expect to see in the way of change today is another matter.

“I don’t know. We will see on Saturday won’t we? It’s not just Mike Catt. We are not trying to change everything in one week. We know that is not possible.

“We have still got a similar calling system, we have still got similar ideas of how we want to play the game. We have tweaked it a little bit so we are not coming in saying ‘Right lads, old regime out, new regime in. We want this.’

“We need to fly into Saturday from minute one, so if we went down that route, there is going to be lads second guessing themselves, not knowing calls, not knowing what the other person is thinking.

“We are still on the same road, we are just taking a few different routes out of it.”