From on the outside, looking in to on the inside, looking forward.
Josh van der Flier is some specimen.
He takes his seat in an expansive function room, at Tallaght Stadium, and looks rested. Tanned and rested.
Ankle surgery saw him miss the end of Leinster’s season and Ireland’s summer tour to South Africa. Just as he was settling in, as Leinster and Ireland’s No.7, injury struck. He could ask Sean O’Brien about that. He probably has.
Van der Flier keeps a little black notebook where he jots down thoughts on his game, opponents, plays, words of advice and more. At the start of each season, he also writes out his goals. The difference in his 2015/16 goals and 2016/17 show how far he has come in such a short space of time.
Last season: “The World Cup was coming up so my goal was to just try and get on the Leinster team during that period and hopefully hold onto my place when the internationals came back.”
This season: “I hope I can get back into the Ireland team, yeah. It’s obviously up to the coaches and I’ll do everything I can to try and get back into the set-up. [At Leinster] we want to get out of our group in Europe, which we weren’t able to do last year, and to get a home semi, in the top four, of the PRO12.”
Last August, van der Flier had only two Leinster starts to his name and another four off the bench. There were rumblings of a move to Munster. Leinster were scouting in South Africa and had an openside picked off the well stocked shelves down there. All van der Flier asked for was a chance.
This August, he’s up to 24 outings for his province and has two Ireland Test caps.
He wants more.
“My mindset now is just to improve on last year and aim higher again,” he says. “I’m trying not to be surprised by what happens and take it all in my stride.”
When Graham Henry paid a consulting visit to Leinster, van der Flier allowed himself to stop and take it all in. He says:
“I had a really good chat about it with Graham about lines of running, support lines and how massive they are for a No.7 especially off first phase. That’s something definitely that I’m going to focus on this season.
“Yeah (preempting events). Running a line where you could support a line break but also hit a ruck if you had to. Just being smarter really. Smarter on the field. More economical too. That’s the focus.
“I did (speak about Richie McCaw). He was just talking about Richie’s attitude to working hard and a few other small bits.”
The 23-year-old lists George Smith, David Pocock, Richie McCaw, Shane Jennings and Sean O’Brien as ‘the great 7s’ and revealed how he prefers video clips to blocks of text when he is doing his prep.
“I try to pick up articles and stuff. My friends would be really helpful. If there was any article that might help, they’d send it on. I’m not great – I’m a slow reader – at reading books so I’d stick to YouTube videos and articles to pick up stuff.
“I try to pick up as much as I can from other players. I used to get the video analyst to get me clips. Like when Australia versus South Africa, where two of the best 7s are playing, and I’d watch the videos, watch the 7s and see what they were doing. I’d learn like that. It is probably the way I’ve learned best.”
Such is the speed of van der Flier’s rise that some of his best work is surely featuring on his contemporaries’ video analysis clips.
*Van der Flier was speaking at the official launch of Leinster’s 2016/17 alternate jersey, which is available to pre-order from Canterbury.com, Life Style Sports and will be in store from August 26.
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