Dial 10 for advice: O'Mahony on setting up Crowley call to legend Sexton

The young Munster out-half was the first pretender to ask for the Leinster talisman's advice, he said.

The fly-half came up as O’Mahony described how he “ended up being a leader” by listening to and learning from the likes of Paul O’Connell, Mick O’Driscoll and Denis Leamy in the Munster dressing room. File picture: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Peter O’Mahony recalled setting up a first phone call between an uncapped Jack Crowley and Ireland fly-half Johnny Sexton as he urged young people to keep asking questions of more experienced colleagues in their fields.

The former Munster and Ireland captain was speaking at Alpha Wealth’s “Motivate. Prepare. Empower.” event at Supervalu Pairc Ui Chaoimh in Cork on Tuesday as he discussed leadership in an on-stage interview with fellow former international Bernard Jackman.

Munster are hoping current Ireland number 10 Crowley, 26, will prove his fitness for his team’s URC quarter-final away to South Africa’s Bulls on Saturday week after missing the last three games with a neural issue in his leg.

The fly-half came up as O’Mahony described how he “ended up being a leader” by listening to and learning from the likes of Paul O’Connell, Mick O’Driscoll and Denis Leamy in the Munster dressing room.

“Any corner I could turn to, I could talk to these guys and it's something I encourage hugely,” O’Mahony said.

“I do a bit of mentoring for young academy guys and guys looking to be professional rugby players and a lot of them are afraid to go and ask questions or talk to people.

“Actually a few years ago, Jack Crowley, Jack's a great kid and he rang me. It was before he'd started to play for Ireland and he said ‘do you reckon I could have a phone call with Johnny?’ I said sure no problem I'll ring Johnny.

“So I rang Johnny and I said ‘look obviously look Jack is Munster, you're Leinster (but) you're not exactly competing’. Like Johnny was the best in the world at this point and Jack wanted to have a chat with him.

“He said ‘of course’. He said ‘would you believe he's the first out-half that's ever picked up the phone to me as a young fella, to ask me for advice’. He said from any province, never mind Ireland.

“I couldn't believe the fact that there was so many good young out-halves in Leinster, they hadn't picked up the phone to Johnny. He spent two and a half hours on a phone call with Jack and had a great chat and Jack still talks about the meeting and the notes that he took on it.

“I'd encourage all the younger people, be it in business or… go and ask people who've done it or who are in the middle of it or have figured stuff out, 99 times out of 100, unless they're a complete asshole, they give you the time right and they're more than happy to do it and you'd be surprised the nuggets of information you get from people like that.” 

O’Mahony had praise for both Joe Schmidt and his successor as Ireland head coach, Andy Farrell, but it was the latter’s influence on his players as people as well as athletes that has had a lasting impression.

“Andy is very laid back until you get to the pitch. Still very different to Joe, but the environment that he's created there from a learning point of view, from a game understanding point of view, from taking real leadership of yourself and your own habits, you know, the confidence he gives people.

“Andy just says, ‘be yourself, be the best version of yourself, be yourself, but bring everything that you've been picked for. You've now been picked for Ireland, bring everything that's good about you to the group and put it all out there’, and that's what people do.

“He's a couple of rules, people have to be curious, you have to go around, if you're an 18-year-old, you have to get stuck in with the 35-year-olds, you would need to ask questions.

“If you're one of the older fellas and you can pick out a younger guy who's better than you, you need to go and ask him about stuff, you need to be vulnerable, which was never done at the start of my career. Like, vulnerable was kind of almost like a weak point.

“Like, I'm not helping him, he's in the same position as me, whereas now we've got to be vulnerable to ask questions. You've got to be vulnerable enough to (say), I figured this out, can I give you a hand with this? Or I haven't figured this out, can you help me with it? Be vulnerable enough to ask questions when you're a young fella in an Irish squad, which can be daunting. And he's created an atmosphere of knowledge and understanding and working together as well as being ultra-competitive. It's just a great environment he has created.”