You could forgive Tadhg Furlong for thinking this Test rugby business was not all that testing after all.
Nine games into his Ireland career the Leinster prop has, admittedly, tasted more defeats than victories. But, sometimes, it is quality over quantity and after the World Cup win over Romania and the famous Tour victory in Cape Town last summer, on Saturday Furlong experienced something no Irish international had tasted before him.
His second ever Test start delivered Ireland’s first ever win over the All Blacks. This 23-year-old from Wexford is making a mockery of 111 years of hurt.
Dwell on that for a moment. Tadhg Furlong is 23 years old. By tighthead standards he is practically in utero, yet the prop with just 24 starts in three seasons for Leinster does not look out of place at the highest level.
Mike Ross was still looking for a game at Munster at that age – it would be three years before he joined Harlequins and he was 29 making his Test debut. He was 31 before he faced a Tier 1 nation (France in 2011).
His predecessor at tighthead, John Hayes, was seen as something of a green-horn gamble when he was thrown in at the age of 26 by Warren Gatland. He would own that green N0 3 jersey for the next decade.
But, on the evidence available in Chicago, Furlong is so much more than the next in the line of succession from Hayes to Ross. One or the other was usually described as the most important players on the teams of Gatland, Eddie O’Sullivan, Declan Kidney and Joe Schmidt – Ross was virtually undroppable under Schmidt until this summer – but that was solely because of their supremacy at their primary job of ensuring a solid scrum.
Ireland’s setpiece was in fine nick thanks to the efforts of Furlong, Rory Best and Jack McGrath – but this trio offer so much around the park and the youngest of three was leading by example against the mighty All Blacks.
This was a complete performance from a complete prop. As well as holding up his end of the bargain on Ireland’s five scrums, he was adding his considerable grunt to the driving maul that delivered Ireland first try.
He was poaching balls like an openside with a vendetta.
TADHG FURLONG!!!!!!!!!!!! #IREvNZLpic.twitter.com/qBS5BuIWkj
— Avril Needham (@comagirlx) November 6, 2016
And he was pursuing the best full-back in the world and making his tackle after almost running the length of the field.
This is not the behaviour of your run of the mill prop, these are the actions of a potentially world class front row forward.
If he is beginning to think Test rugby is a walk in the park, it is because he makes it look so.
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