Donncha O’Callaghan identifies Ireland’s “incredible” unsung hero

The amount of work this player gets through is hard to believe.

When you look at the top performers from Ireland's 19-9 victory over France, it's hard not to look past Jonathan Sexton and Conor Murray. Sexton was so impressive in his first game back after a lengthy injury layoff that it would be easy to forget the 31-year-old has very few minutes of rugby under his belt over the past number of months. With regards to Murray, his man-of-the-match performance was something we have all come to expect from the Limerick man. Control, patience, accuracy, all words you could use to describe the display which he produced at the Aviva Stadium. His accomplishment has put him again, firmly in the conversation as the world's best scrum-half. But for all the warranted admiration and praise the aforementioned players received at the weekend, Donncha O'Callaghan revealed on the latest episode of SportsJOE's rugby podcast, The Hard Yards, that in his eyes, one player in particular stood out the most.

"I don't want to get over carried away with Conor, he deserves all the mentioning that he's getting but I think we have to mention Tadhg Furlong as well, I thought he was amazing yesterday...there is a guy in the dressing room, always, that does a bit of grift, a bit of donkey work, that all the lads are looking over at and they know he has put in a special, big shift."

When SportJOE's Pat McCarry quizzed O'Callaghan on whether Furlong will be in the Lions picture, the Cork man had no doubt in his mind that Furlong will feature in New Zealand.

"Absolutely, after his performances, I think there's guys really throwing it down, you look at (Joe) Launchbury, everyone's probably looking at Johnny Gray, (George) Kruis if he comes back, but Launchbury has come in, two games man-of-the-match and Tadhg is the exact same. "I think he has been incredible, I don't think there's been enough hype about him because it's not a glamorous position but for him to do what he does but if you look at the amount of ball carries he had, the amount of rucks he hit, like Mike said, clearing beyond the ball, he does everything spot on. For me he is just an incredible player. When you really need a bit of x-factor out of certain players, I think he's incredible."

The meteoric rise of Furlong over the past year has been a sight to behold and Ireland are truly the envy of the rest of the international rugby community that we have a such a dynamic and explosive player in this position. You can listen to O'Callaghan waxing lyrical about Furlong in Episode 4 of The Hard Yards below.