You can see it happening before your eyes – Garry Ringrose is growing accustomed to being an Ireland international. His feet are under the table and he is feeling more and more at home.
This time last year, Ringrose was making plans to attend the Ireland vs. Wales game with his brothers or his parents – whoever would go with him really.
On Saturday, the 22-year-old will play his first ever Six Nations game. His proud family will be in the Murrayfield stands while he takes on Scotland down at pitch-level.
Many had called for him to feature in Joe Schmidt’s 2016 Six Nations plans but he insists there was no hint of frustration as he was overlooked for the likes of Stuart McCloskey and Luke Fitzgerald. He tells us:
“At the time, I only had a handful of caps for Leinster so, personally, I wasn’t too disappointed at not being involved with Ireland.
“I’m still over the moon at being involved now – to be playing with Leinster and having a chance there because going into that year [2015/16] I thought I would have been lucky to just get a couple of caps while the World Cup was on. The fact that I started getting into double figures and then 11, 12 was more than enough for me.
“I was in training [with Ireland] a couple of times but I certainly wasn’t disappointed in any way. Joe was just giving players, and giving me the sort of messages he would have given to the other centres at Leinster – about how to improve and get better – so I was happy enough with that, and the opportunities I had at Leinster.”
Schmidt, again, resisted the calls to bring Ringrose to South Africa on the summer tour. Instead, he got in a full pre-season at Leinster and showed up for the start of 2016/17 as a whole knew animal. He has put on 5 kilos in the past 18 months and stood up to the rigours of playing No.12 against the All Blacks.
Garry Ringrose has a very measured take on bulking up to prosper in professional rugby https://t.co/KLLtBpVyJq
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 20, 2016
He has been in fine form this season, save for some defensive blips against Castres last month, and is ready to make an impact.
Asked for his earliest Six Nations memory, the centre’s response makes just about every reporter in the room feel far too old. Ringrose says:
“Em, it would be the Girvan Dempsey try or the one at Croke Park, Shane Horgan. Jeez, I’m going back now.
“There’s a couple of them. Obviously the Ronan O’Gara drop-kick at the Millennium Stadium stands out. That was in 2009 so I would have been in second year of school. That was probably the one that stands out.”
We are choosing to believe Ringrose means the Girvan Dempsey try from 2004 at Twickenham rather than his 2007 score against ‘The Auld Enemy’ at Croke Park.
But it was probably 2007…
