It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for Irish Rugby to start 2018.
There was the Gerbrandt Grobler media storm in January, the start of the Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding trial in February, as well as the subsequent #notmycaptain hashtag that became one of the biggest subplots surrounding the opening weekend of this year’s Six Nations.
A last-gasp win over France and a dominant home win over Italy to start the tournament has served as a timely distraction from a series of unwanted events for the IRFU, and while the union look to promote their primary sponsors Vodafone’s #TeamOfUs campaign at every turn, one of their most effective advertisements walks around at Carton House this week recovering from a hamstring injury.
Driving around Dublin it has been noticeable to see just how many #TeamOfUs billboards Vodafone have situated around the capital.
The billboards generally include a variety of images from Ireland’s 2016 win over New Zealand and are placed in conjunction with a cinematic television advert portraying the rise of Tiernan O’Halloran, Rory Best, Conor Murray and Furlong.
Fancy seeing more of how we all belong to the #TeamOfUs? @IrishRugby @ConorMurray_9 @tadhgfurlong @RoryBest2 @Tiernanoh11 pic.twitter.com/FrRUDyyZWA
— Vodafone Ireland (@VodafoneIreland) November 7, 2017
The advert depicts a young Furlong staring at livestock, hosing down a tractor, pushing a tyre and tackling a rolling tube as key parts of his journey from humble farm boy to world class tighthead prop.
I have a cousin who also hosed down tractors and stared at livestock as a child but he will most likely be studying agricultural science next year and not starting for Ireland at a Rugby World Cup, unless his situation drastically changes over the next 12 months.
Furlong’s agricultural background may help form some of his characteristics and personality traits as a person, but he developed his skills as a rugby player at New Ross Rugby Club and at his school in Good Counsel, and not necessarily by tackling tubes in a field.
Furlong’s depiction in the Vodafone #TeamOfUs advert aligns nicely with the backstories of Murray, O’Halloran and Best to form a diverse and cosy promotion for the IRFU and Vodafone, but Tadhg Furlong walking around living and breathing as 25-year-old Tadhg Furlong could be a better advertisement for Irish Rugby.
Firstly, without taking into account his ability or personality, Furlong has made the transition from Good Counsel to the British & Irish Lions, which is no mean feat.
The school have won the Senior Colleges A Hurling Championship in 2002, 2003, 2011, 2013 and 2015 and were also runners-up in the championship in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2006, 2008 and 2009.
While their trophy cabinet is seemingly filled with hurling honours, the Leinster Schools Senior Cup is nowhere to be found.
In a Leinster Rugby landscape where the vast majority of players are streamlined from the elite fee-paying schools into the club’s rugby academy, with a schooling that mirrors the workload of a professional athlete and not your average sport playing teenager, Furlong should serve as a prime example of what can be achieved by developing club players who may not necessarily have the financial means to attend the country’s biggest rugby nurseries, but who nevertheless still have the potential to become world class international rugby players.
That’s viewing Furlong from a product perspective, whereby you look at where he started and examine how he arrived to where he is now. It’s analysing his rise from point A to point B and somewhat overlooking his affinity for looking at livestock along the way.
Then there’s what we can see and hear from Furlong; this self-deprecating, honest and wisecracking prop that struggles to entertain the fact that he became the best player in his position in the world less than two years after making his international debut.
We had an absolute pleasure chatting to Tadhg Furlong for @THYrugby podcast this week. Check out the full interview on the show tomorrow pic.twitter.com/1BFTdr5PIu
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) February 18, 2018
Despite his meteoric rise and undoubted skillset, which includes unusually good hands for a player with such a low jersey number, Furlong is uncomfortable when pundits and fans put him in such a bracket when it’s so clearly warranted.
He is constantly looking to improve in areas where he feels he needs to make strides but acknowledges that he may never attain perfection, even though if you were to create the ideal tighthead prop on a video game it would look something like Ireland’s latest number three.
Then there’s the tidbits of information that you learn about him through others. The parts of him that JOE’s Dion Fanning discovered last year when visiting Good Counsel.
Fanning found that on the Monday after Ireland played Australia in November 2016 that Furlong thrust one of his Ireland jerseys from the Soldier Field win over New Zealand into the hands of Aidan O’Brien, the deputy principal at Good Counsel.
There was also the story of Furlong roaring “Go on the Counsel!” to the school’s rugby players before they played a game against CUS in Donnybrook.
He went in to talk to the Good Counsel team to explain that he wouldn’t be able to stay, but that he wanted to wish them the best of luck.
Vodafone’s #TeamOfUs campaign has made a full frontal assault on billboards around the country, and while their advert paints an idealised version of players from diverse backgrounds coming together to represent the families and communities in which they represent, the best advertisement could be walking around in a pair of Adidas trainers and boots.
Furlong is seemingly a humble kid that turned into a modest man and a figure that Irish Rugby should be proud to have, and in equal measure, the type of player they should continue to promote.
