There’s not much left to the imagination with James Ryan.
He’s a PRO14 winner, a Champions Cup winner, a Grand Slam and a Six Nations winner, and while it’s still hard to comprehend at times, a 22-year-old too.
Ryan enjoyed a near perfect campaign with Leinster and Ireland last season with the first Test loss to Australia in Brisbane the only real blemish on an otherwise impeccable campaign, but with that one defeat withstanding, he was sensational for club and country.
He routinely cleared the double digit mark in carries and tackles. He showed his creativity and playmaking ability in the loose with key offloads against Saracens and Montpellier in the Champions Cup. He won over Joe Schmidt and a host of fans and pundits.
But as ever there’s always room for improvement, it’s become a bit of a mantra at Leinster, it’s just harder pinpointing the areas with Ryan.
“Nuts and bolts of the game,” Ryan said when asked what he wanted to improve on at the launch of the official partnership between Goodbody and Rugby Players Ireland.
“Just my basics so scrum and line-out. I’ve been working a bit with Fogs [John Fogarty, Leinster scrum coach] and he’s been hammering away at me for that. I just want to make that part of my game, my DNA too, and that’s one area that I’ve been looking at, the set-piece.”
His offloading and his level of comfort with ball in hand are clear to see and Ryan attributes the success he is having around the breakdown to his work with Stuart Lancaster and his communication with his half-backs.
“Stuart would do a lot of the skill work so there has been an emphasis for the last couple of years of being comfortable on the ball, being comfortable at first receiver and being able to carry or tip it on or be able to pass it on,” he added.
“It’s the work we’ve been doing the last couple of years kind of helps develop that skill. It’s great playing with Lukey [McGrath] and Jamison [Gibson-Park] and Nick [McCarthy]. They’ve a good knack for seeing gaps and seeing opportunities.
“If you do happen to find yourself in that position and there is a gap inside or outside of you they’re usually letting you know pretty sternly. Yeah they’re kind of easy to find.”
Lancaster has had a big impact on Leinster over the last two seasons and just about every player speaks highly of what he’s brought to the eastern province.
Ryan is one of many players to flourish during his tenure, and while he’s achieved just about every team honour an Irish player could hope for in his debut season, there’s still some room for firsts, with this weekend’s visit of Munster his first game at the Aviva Stadium against Leinster’s biggest rivals since his debut last year.
The St. Michael’s graduate said that it’s important for his side to recreate the same intensity that they brought to Connacht last weekend and that physicality has been a big point of emphasis for Leinster.
“Yeah there is a bit of an extra buzz, last week we spoke about making sure that we had the buzz for a Leinster/Munster there for a Leinster/Connacht game.
“Bringing the same kind of emotion that we would. Now that we’ve beaten Connacht, the focus on this week is making sure they’re going to bring plenty of emotion and physicality, as they always do, we want to make sure that we match that.
“We looked at the learnings from Connacht and there’s certainly a couple of areas we can brush up on, in terms of the set piece actually, but we’ll definitely be looking at Munster.
“You have to look at Munster. There’s so much talent there, whether at 10 they go with Joey, [Ian] Keatley, J.J. Hanrahan, some of their outside backs with [Keith] Earls and [Andrew] Conway, Jaco Taute back now so they’ve such a talented spread there now. We’ll definitely be looking at them too.”
