Craig Casey: 'It’s part and parcel of rugby, you hope it doesn’t happen often'

Fri, 13 Dec, 2024 - 01:00

Simon Lewis

Craig Casey has done enough by now to prove that what he lacks in inches he makes up for in confidence and resilience but there is a good reason why his watching family may not feel so well armed when the Munster and Ireland scrum-half takes the field.

As the self-confessed smallest player on the pitch, Casey says he is used to the physical treatment he receives from opponents with last Saturday’s Champions Cup clash offering the latest moment when breaths may have been held concerning his safety as Stade Francais lock Baptiste Pesenti lifted him upside down until the scrum-half’s head was the closest part of him to the deck.

Those are understandably anxious moments for Casey’s mother Sinéad, whose father Pat Lawler died on a rugby pitch from a head injury. Sinéad’s brother Mossy Lawler, the Munster skills coach and former wing was three when Pat died during an inter-firm match in Limerick and an annual underage tournament has been staged by UL Bohemians in his honour ever since. Casey’s unsolicited scrapes offer a more painful reminder, however.

Fortunately he landed safely, though the initial act was enough for Pesenti to receive a red card from referee Luke Pearce, the punishment followed by a two-week suspension issued in midweek.

By that time, Casey could see the funny side when asked for his thoughts as the giant lock going through his mind as his world was literally turned upside down.

“How tall he was!” was the initial response from the 5ft 5ins number nine. “I was trying to get my hand to the ground but I couldn’t reach, so that’s how tall your man was. I was still about two feet off.

“I was like ‘What the f**k! How tall is he?’ And thankfully I got to the side. It was grand, it was grand… but that’s part of it, like, part of being the smallest player on the pitch. I’m used to it now.”

Previous incidents have been more concerning, particularly the concussion he sustained during Ireland’s first Test in South Africa last summer when Casey was tackled into the ground by former Munster team-mate RG Snyman, his head bouncing off the rock-hard pitch at Loftus Versfeld. The force of the impact was such that he missed the following week’s second Test and Casey admitted this week ahead of Friday night’s pool visit to Castres that he remembers little of what happened post-match but he felt for his relatives watching on from afar given the family history.

“Look, it’s fine for me, I’m kinda of used to it. Obviously it’s part and parcel of rugby, you hope it doesn’t happen often.

“But for my family, I think it’s very difficult because my grandfather actually died on the rugby field. He was playing a charity game when he was 40, (he died) with a head knock.

“It’s very tough for my grandmother and my mother to watch on and see that, especially when you see how far away from home we were in South Africa.

“In Senior Cup (his only previous incident of losing consciousness on a rugby pitch), I was up and about after 20 seconds and I was fine. But when your mother is watching that from halfway across the globe, and you’re on oxygen and stuff like that after what has happened in her family, I’d say that’s fairly harrowing. But I was grand.”

Snyman, now with Leinster, apologised to his former team-mate but Casey confessed: “I don’t actually remember the changing room, to be honest. I don’t remember anything from probably about an hour-and-a-half after the knockout.

“I thought I was pretty much knocked out for an hour, but it was actually only a few minutes. I have no recollection of anything in the changing room afterwards.

“I just about remember the Faf de Klerk photo, I don’t really remember that too much. I don’t know what crap I was chatting to him about!

“But RG did come into the changing room afterwards but I don’t remember seeing him.

“No, no, (no bad blood). It’s way worse that he’s gone up to Leinster!”

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