Jamie Osborne: 'Stacking games on games, you get more used to the role'

Osborne's constant presence in the backfield for Ireland during the Six Nations has been helpful given the shuffling of the wingers around him 

Jamie Osborne is set to win his 13th Ireland cap when his side face Wales in the Six Nations on Friday. Pic: ©INPHO/Ben Brady

There was a time when no-one knew who the next man up at full-back would be for Ireland in the event that Hugo Keenan was injured. Now Keenan, so robust for so long, has been absent all season and three hopefuls have been offered auditions.

Jimmy O’Brien, just recalled to the Six Nations squad this week, started at 15 last summer against Georgia and Portugal in games that were, ultimately, of little to no worth when valued by the currency of elite international rugby.

Jamie Osborne, after a late call to Australia with the British and Irish Lions, got the nod in November for games against New Zealand and Japan, fell foul of injury, and that in turn gave Mack Hansen the opportunity to front up against the Wallabies and the Springboks.

Fate’s fickle hand intervened again — Hansen hasn’t played since. So, it fell to Osborne to step back into the breach and play the part for the first three rounds of this Championship. Odds are he will again against Wales this Friday.

It’s less than a year since he was tried out on the wing. A versatile man of many talents, it didn’t go well that day against France and it hasn’t been tried since. Go back to that Georgia match in June and Osborne was actually starting at 13.

A big man with a wide skillset, he still offers a live option in the centre. Keenan is too good not to be a live option the moment he returns to fitness but Osborne’s burgeoning residency at 15 feels significant. The familiarity with it is growing on him.

“It's helpful, definitely, stacking games on games because you get a bit more used to the role, a bit more confidence week on week. Anything that you need to work on from the previous week, you're able to implement that. So it obviously makes things a bit easier.” 

Osborne’s ubiquity in the backfield is all the more timely given the shuffling of wingers around him this last month. Robert Baloucoune, Tommy O’Brien, Jacob Stockdale and James Lowe have all started along the tramlines so far.

It hasn’t all been sweetness and light. Ask him if it feels as if this has clicked and the reply is a reminder of the trauma that was Paris on opening night when the French tore Ireland to shreds for most of the 80 minutes.

Still only 24, Osborne was earning just an 11th cap but he emerged from the Stade de France without terminal damage. The sole survivor in the back three that started against Italy in round two, he ran a lovely support line to claim a try and saved another.

Twickenham two weekends ago wasn’t perfect although a couple of early errors felt like small change on the profit and loss account by the end of a game where he again claimed a brilliant try in running at speed and from an angle against a put-upon defence.

For all the talk of who should play ten, Ireland are finding increased creativity from other sources in the backline, what with Robert Baloucoune ripping it up. Stuart McCloskey going viral and Osborne joining the line to such good effect.

“We're a team that wants to play the space and we as a backline were pretty good in Twickenham in terms of getting the ball, especially on those transitions where it comes off a kick and the defence is a bit disorganised compared to maybe other parts of the game.” 

If that stuff is the cherry on top then the bread and butter for any full-back in this modern version of the game is the aerial contest. Ireland’s progress from the beating they took against France to the dominance shown against England has been immense.

And it’s an area that suits Osborne’s skillset.

There isn’t much science or art to launching a ball high and fighting for scraps but such are the small margins in rugby that it has been parsed for ways and means of securing the ball when it comes back to terra firma.

The main question is: do you bat it or look to catch it?

“We've been coached and been trying to always go as if you were going to catch it clean. When you get your position right and your timing right and you get up there and at the last second, and you know you won't be able to catch it, there's a chance for you to change and slap it.

“But I'd say it's probably harder to do the other way. If you're going up to slap it and then you realise, ‘Oh, I could catch it cleanly,’ it's really harder to change what you're going to do. So our mindset has been to try and win the balls cleanly, but with the contests now it's just as important to create some sort of scrap and hopefully we can win that as well.”