Jack Crowley on the toxicity: 'You can choose not to engage'

STAYING FOCUSED: Jack Crowley practices is goalkicking during an Ireland Rugby squad captain's run at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Performance of the week so far? Jack Crowley’s turn in front of the media.

The Ireland out-half will have known the shape of the session before he sat down at that top table. All players are briefed long before a mic is turned on. As diligently prepped as a politician in front of a committee. As practised as a priest ahead of a sermon.

Joe Schmidt was still at the height of his powers with the national team here when an A4 sheet was found in the team hotel’s car park with all the relevant info and likely topics for discussion printed out neatly in easily digestible bites.

Crowley probably didn’t need any cog notes. The debate over the out-half position has been inescapable ever since Andy Farrell parachuted Sam Prendergast into the No.10 shirt ahead of the Munster man for the game against Australia in November of 2024.

Now Prendergast, after a turbulent 15 caps and a stretch spent mostly in the box seat, has been left out of the 23 for a second game in a row. Maybe that will soften the focus, but it has been a divisive discussion when conducted online.

Ronan O’Gara labelled it “toxic” in a column in these pages. Farrell said similar in the course of this Six Nations. Johnny Sexton, no stranger to the worst excesses of the keyboard classes, said it is simply a matter of ignoring all that digital slime.

Can it really be that easy? Crowley thinks so.

“It is if you just put it away and don't engage with it. It's like anything, you have a choice and you can choose to not engage. You can choose to engage. And it's just creating good habits, you know what I mean? Day to day, like with your nutrition or diet, or training performance.

“You make a choice and you commit to it. And it's just in general, trying to spend… A lot of people now, we're talking about quality of life, and trying to spend time off the phone, when you're in training and trying to connect with one another.

“Staying off the phone is one way that you can… Play Monopoly, or whatever it might be. So, yeah, that's the way. I knew just because we're in camp in the evenings, you want to connect with one another, and that's one way as well. So yeah, definitely, you always have a choice.” 

Fair play to him if it is that simple.

Crowley was clearly not in a mood to open the gates into his mind all that deeply, and who could blame him? The team’s fans were mentioned five times in one answer. ‘Process’ was offered up seven. Other greatest hits included ‘focus’ and ‘balance’.

Again, no criticism here.

The straight bat was the safest approach. He used it when asked about whether he had proved a point in Twickenham, on the pressure he may have felt when restored to the XV, and on whether the unemotional approach is the way to deal with high-stress occasions.

“You’ve got to find the balance because the occasion matters,” he said.

The one time the drawbridge looked like lowering even a fraction came when talk turned to the IRFU’s in-house video of the playmaker sharing something on his phone with Caoimhin Kelleher and Nathan Collins in the days before the England game.

The rugby team’s GPS man Andrew Morrissey used to work for the FAI and had invited the footballers in for a quick visit. The video Crowley pulled up was a clip of Morrissey in goal for a penalty shootout during a break in training in Portugal pre-tournament.

“He got burns on his knees and stuff like that,” he smiled, “so he was committed to the cause.” 

Crowley’s game play has been more illuminating. Impressive off the bench against France and Italy, and back in pole position since round three, he has played his part in the sort of understated, systematic fashion that his team needs.

There have been some crumbs left behind for any detractors to feed off. His goal-kicking has been good but not great, and with a bad shank thrown in to suggest that he still has work to do with Johnny Sexton and Dave Aldred.

His is a position with a high bar, after all. Prendergast’s absence from the stage in London, and again on Friday night when Wales pitch up at the Aviva Stadium, isn’t the only salutary lesson from the recent past for Crowley to heed.

George Ford’s strong thread of games at ten for England has been ended with his removal entirely from the 23 for their next game in Rome, as a result of the dog day afternoon he suffered against Ireland a fortnight ago.

His nadir was the ironic cheers directed his way when, after a pair of kicks sent dead, he found touch from just metres away. Crowley might have felt for him given he committed the same error at the end of the Italy game and with a bonus-point to play for.

How does he deal with it all? Breath work. Practise. And anticipating what’s ahead.

Works for media gigs too.