Tadhg Beirne: ‘I’m always battling a stigma through my own career’

For all his success in recent years, his formative experiences have made Tadhg Beirne the player and the man he is today

VOTE OF CONFIDENCE: I still have to continue to improve myself every time I come in here and wear green. I definitely feel I’m more confident and more comfortable, says Tadhg Beirne. Picture: Dan Sheridan

Tadhg Beirne will be 30 in January. The Munster forward has played over 100 times for Leinster, Scarlets and his current employers. He has turned out for Ireland over 20 times and he became the 838th man to represent the British and Irish Lions over the summer.

He has, by any measure, made it.

But to listen to him talk earlier this week was to recall the early days when his time in the Leinster academy was haunted by injury, when he was delivering pizzas and doing a bit of coaching with Blackrock to make ends meet, and that sliding doors moment when he was either going to see through a Masters in real estate or take a punt with Scarlets.

For all his success in recent years, these formative experiences have made him the player and the man he is today. This elongated struggle to eke out a professional career for himself has all but imprinted itself on his very DNA.

Fast forward to Cape Town this summer.

Beirne hadn’t thought much about making the Lions until he nailed the audition that was the Six Nations. By the time the Test series approached he was hopeful of having a major say but lost out to Courtney Lawes in the court of opinion that was Warren Gatland’s mind.

The man from Eadestown had to make do with 18 minutes off the bench across the first two games against the Springboks, Gatland leaving him out altogether for the decider when opting instead for Adam Beard’s abilities in the maul.

“There’s always going to be a lot of frustration at my end, though, personally I felt I had been playing quite well and I knew myself and Courtney (Lawes) were kind of head-to-head going into that first game.

“When I didn’t get selected I couldn’t really argue much because he played exceptionally well. The frustrating thing for me was the lack of game-time in those first two games, not getting an opportunity to put my hand up at all.

“And then being overlooked for the last game was something that will sit with me for a while, and I’ll question. That was the team that he decided could win the series and I wasn’t in it. It’s their decision at the end of the day.”

There is no recriminations or bile here. He can look back at the disappointment of the 2019 World Cup and reason that it was still a massive honour and a lifetime experience. The same holds for his time playing with the best these islands have to offer earlier this year.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. The five weeks he spent on holidays after South Africa were flecked with thoughts of what could have been from a collective point of view while the personal disappointments have left him determined to have the final say.

“For me it’s about continuing to prove to others that... I’m always battling a stigma through my own career, it’s been in my head that I wasn’t good enough. You’re always battling that and it’s just another one of those.

“It was coaches who I won’t have to prove anything to again in the future, I presume. I suppose the performances going forward, I just want to put down a marker for them to look back and think, ‘maybe I made a mistake’.”

It’s not that Beirne has written off the experience. Far from it. He was nervous linking up with the squad, worried as to how he would match up even in training sessions, and only to emerge knowing that he had slotted in just fine.

That he was this unsure of himself in the first place is striking, and maybe a product again of those early days when he was almost lost to the game. Anyone watching the Six Nations would have surely held fewer reservations about his abilities.

Beirne started all five games, switching from lock to back row and back again. He was twice named man of the match. There were two tries, his 10 turnovers were by far the most in the Championship, and he rated top five for lineouts won and top 10 for carries.

Joe Schmidt used him in bits and bobs, Farrell has tried to utilise him fully.

“I suppose as a player I’m a lot more confident and, coming in under Joe, it was a lot of the unknown and constantly on the periphery as well. I wasn’t really a starter, I didn’t really know where I stood.

“Look, I’m not a guaranteed starter as it is now under Faz. I still have to continue to improve myself every time I come in here and wear green. I definitely feel I’m more confident and more comfortable in this squad than I would have been two years ago.

“That’s quite an exciting prospect for me for sure.”