James Ryan stands tall in the finest hour of his blossoming career

It can be a difficult art form covering professional sport.

You enter games with all these pre-conceived notions. What could happen here, or how a player might respond there, or how they might use this skill in this instance. A lot of the build up to Ireland's Six Nations opener with France on Saturday had nothing to do with rugby, and rightfully so, but one of the major narratives at least as far as rugby was concerned was James Ryan's Six Nations debut. The 21-year-old lock made his debut against the USA in the summer before starting against a dreadful South African side and an Argentinian team playing their last game of a 186,000km season in November, but the opening game of a Six Nations at the Stade de France was always going to be the biggest test of his international mettle. During the week Ryan had been lauded for his handling skills, his offloading ability and his mobility for a man of his size. A clip of him scoring a 65m try in the first round of the Junior Cup against Castleknock in 2012 underlined Ryan’s athleticism as a lanky third year student. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wn8MtK1GL8 In 2018, he's a hulking figure in the Irish pack and it showed against France in the opening round of the Six Nations on Saturday. In a first-half where both sides were starved of space and opportunity, Ryan consistently barreled his way into the French defence leading all-forward carriers in the first-half with 11 carries for 21 hard-earned metres. For all the talk of his athleticism, footwork, handling ability, it was old-fashioned, hard-nosed ball carrying that saw him carry his way over the gainline as he assumed the majority of the ball carrying responsibilities alongside Cian Healy and CJ Stander. In the second-half, we saw further evidence of Ryan's ability with ball in hand but we also witnessed other facets of his game. His textbook tackling on the 6 ft 7 1⁄2 in, 19 st 12 lb, Sébastien Vahaamahina. His synchronicity with fellow second-row Iain Henderson to generate a key turnover. His spectacular one-handed grab at the back of a line-out drifting away from him. A player of Ryan's talent and calibre has to start for Ireland if fit and his inclusion shows Joe Schmidt that you have to back talent over experience. Ryan's first start in the Six Nations came at the expense of Devin Toner, the 31-year-old, 53 cap Devin Toner. But have you ever seen Toner, as good as he has been over the last few seasons, and I must stress that he has been good, have that type of influence on a game? With Ireland in the white hot thick of it throughout the game, they needed a player like Jordan Larmour with the ability to turn the game open. On one particular instance in the first-half, Ireland had an overlap with Rob Kearney and Keith Earls on the outside, and instead of taking the ball forward and trying to find the gap, he passed the ball behind to Earls who managed to make some good ground by virtue of his own brilliance. Even the facets of the game Kearney is supposed to own superiority - positioning, catching, composure etc. - he was underwhelming - dropping kicks, getting obliterated in the carry, missing tackles on wingers. Elsewhere Cian Healy was immense. For the first time since 2013, he carried the ball with a real sense of purpose and gutso in an Irish jersey. He's been showing shades of his old power throughout this season and against France it was clear to see. Ireland were dragged into a dogfight on Saturday but Schmidt will realise that he has some genuine pitbulls within his ranks, but Ryan could be his golden retriever. *The Golden Retriever is a large-sized breed of dog bred as gun dogs to retrieve shot waterfowl such as ducks and upland game birds during hunting and shooting parties. I'm not sure if Sébastien Vahaamahina and Arthur Iturria classify as 'game birds', but Ryan climbed the hill to meet them, and anyone else France had to throw at him. His talent has been monitored for most of this decade by Leinster and Joe Schmidt, but on Saturday, for the first time for the majority of the Irish public, they were exposed to Ireland's most promising forward since.... Tadhg Furlong? If you only have to think back as Tadhg Furlong, a player who made his international debut in August 2015, for a player who looked this good this quickly, then Ireland are in a very good place. Joe Schmidt's side will need to score tries this year if they want to contend, especially on the basis of Wales' 34-7 demolition of Scotland earlier on Saturday and how the win over France ended, but at least he knows he has good stock to work with, none more so than James Ryan.