Jamie Osborne: If I want to be in the Leinster team I need to be just as good as Jordie Barrett

Jordie Barrett’s levels of communication, his ability to scan the field and see the right pictures, allied to his professionalism, have all been noted and digested by Jamie Osborne. 

Jamie Osborne dismissed suggestions he has an outside chance of a Lions call-up, and said there's "a lot of room for improvement" in his game. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

It’s put to Jamie Osborne that one or two pundits have him down as an outside shot for Andy Farrell’s British and Irish Lions squad when it is announced in London this Thursday. His polite smile says it all.

“I haven't really thought about that, to be honest, because in my mind anyway you definitely, probably, do have to be playing, starting at your club at least. I know Leinster is probably a little bit different to maybe most clubs but it's still true.” He’s right, isn’t he?

There’s no doubt but that Osborne has made serious strides, all the way from the club game in Naas to the Leinster senior team and seven Test caps with Ireland, three of them starts against either South Africa or France.

Against that, he was unused in three of the five Six Nations games and for Leinster’s last two Champions Cup games, against Glasgow Warriors and Northampton Saints. There is a great history of Lions bolters down the years but… no.

He knows he has higher altitudes to reach in blue and green before red is added to the spectrum.

“One hundred per cent. I know I've probably moved around position-wise as well in those games. So yeah, like, there's a lot of room for improvement, whether that'll be at full-back, in the centre, or on the wing.” 

Leinster left a load of talent in the stands for that Champions Cup loss to the Saints. Thomas Clarkson, Gus McCarthy, Jack Boyle, Jimmy O’Brien and Osborne all have their Ireland party memberships cards. None of them made the 23.

In Osborne’s case, you could argue that he was the man who lost out most from the signing of Jordie Barrett given Jimmy O’Brien, another live midfield option, has fallen down the pecking order this season.

An argument had it that Barrett’s arrival deprived young Irish talent of the chance to shine in the big games. Here was that argument writ large, but Osborne himself would be the first to point out that elite sport is a meritocracy first and foremost.

“Yeah, I would say that's just the nature of it, really. We want to win trophies and if I want to be in the team I've got to be just as good, if not better than him, or anyone else who I'm competing with. So, yeah, that's just the nature of it. I think everyone accepts that.” 

Osborne noticed the lift Barrett’s arrival onto the field in the second-half gave the home crowd in the Aviva Stadium last Saturday, and made the very obvious but salient point that this was because of his earlier performances. It’s not just because Barrett is an All Black.

Barrett’s levels of communication, his ability to scan the field and see the right pictures, allied to his professionalism, have all been noted and digested by a player who reminds you he has yet to earn a major senior trophy with the province.

He did make half-a-dozen appearances in his debut season when Leinster claimed the PRO14 title but that was 2021. It has only been heartbreak since. He understands implicitly the need to respond to their Champions Cup exit with a first URC title.

As Josh van der Flier said this week, it may be that the players “care too much”. Osborne was in Edinburgh with his dad Joe and brother, and Leinster clubmate, Andrew in 2009 when the club won its first Heineken Cup. He is steeped in that winning tradition.

Could that actually be suffocating?

"I don't think so. No. It's what we've all dreamed of doing. Most of the people in this building have grown up watching Leinster and supporting Leinster so it's a real privilege to be able to put on the jersey and definitely more of a privilege than anything.

“The pressure that comes with it is definitely a privilege.”