Graham Rowntree: Tadhg Beirne has everything required to be a lock for Ireland

"His athleticism is ridiculous but he can also pack a scrum," says Munster's forwards coach

Graham Rowntree wasn't overly keen on revisiting's Munster's loss to Leinster. Picture: Inpho/Morgan Treacy

Graham Rowntree didn't appear all that happy to revisit Munster's loss to Leinster earlier this week.

The province's forwards coach chewed on a relatively innocuous query about what had pleased him in that narrow PRO14 defeat, and what had not, like it was a barely tolerable morsel of meat before deciding that there was nothing for it but to swallow the offending lump.

“Our defence,” he offered. “I thought our defence, particularly our goalline defence, was pretty impressive, much of the setpiece and contact work but, again, we missed some crucial lineouts. It’s a difficult one to pinpoint some positives from the evening but it’s a great question.”

His distaste for anything to do with a 13-10 defeat that could easily have been a victory was understandable but there was more to take from the evening in Limerick than that. In fact. Rowntree had already waxed lyrical about Tadhg Beirne at that point.

Named as the broadcaster's man of the match for his efforts last Saturday, the award was just the latest evidence of a quiet, calm and studious character who brings an energy to their performances that can border on talismanic.

“He’s certainly in the analysis room a lot, looking at stuff,” said Rowntree. “He was a lineout caller at the weekend for example and he’s not just a lock. He can play anywhere in that back five, the way he plays the game, the input he has in a game.

“I was looking at his stats again from the weekend. He’s making nearly 30 tackles in the game, never mind his lineout game, his rucks and the pressure he’s putting on the ball at a defensive breakdown. He’s very athletic, nice to work with.”

Beirne's recent run of form has heightened the spotlight on his candidacy for a place in Andy Farrell's Ireland side and begs the question again as to why he has yet to fully work a groove for himself in the national team's firmament.

Seventeen caps since his debut against Australia in the summer of 2018 isn't a bad haul but eight of them have come from the bench. Of his nine starts, six have come in the second row with the other trio secured as the blindside flanker.

Doubts continue to persist as to whether he is big and beefy enough to be an international lock.

Official stats can be notoriously misleading but his IRFU profile projects a player who is eight or nine pounds lighter than James Ryan, Iain Henderson and Quinn Roux yet he just edges Ultan Dillane, for example, in both height and weight.

Munster seem to have no qualms about his ability to excel in the heart of the pack in the club game. It's December of 2019 since he started in the back row for the province. Maybe the issue is a question of perspective: do you focus on what he brings to a team or on what he doesn't?

Rowntree, predictably, believes he has the CV to do the job on the biggest stage.

“Yeah. I may be a bit biased in my point of view but I’ve worked with a lot of Test players and he’d certainly be up there,” said the former England prop and forwards coach. “His athleticism is ridiculous but he can also pack a scrum.

“You know, if you think about the amount of scrums and the work that’s required from a second row in a game like the weekend, in terms of maul, scrum, breakdown, he’s doing that and he’s having a massive amount of influence on the game elsewhere as well. So credit to him.”

Beirne is one of ten Munster players for Ireland's Six Nations campaign which begins with a game against Wales at the Principality Stadium next Sunday week but they occupy differing rungs on the ladder.

If Beirne is somewhere in the upper-to-mid-tier, and the likes of Conor Murray, CJ Stander and Peter O'Mahony reside at the top, then Craig Casey and Shane Daly are staring up at the lot of them, delighted to have secured a foothold but aiming to push on.

For Daly it is the opportunity to build on his debut against Georgia late last year and Casey has already made a big impression on Jonathan Sexton after linking up with the senior squad in a developmental capacity in 2020.

“It’s great, isn’t it? It just shows everyone what hard work can do, working on your game every day,” said Rowntree. “Craig - Shane would be the same - but Craig in particular, he’s always got a notepad in his hand. He’s always at the meetings making notes diligently, asking questions.

“He’s up in the coaches room, pestering coaches. He doesn’t pester me so much but he pesters the back coaches more. I can’t speak highly enough about him and that’s what you get through hard work. You get out what you put in and he’s shown that.”