You have to ask players about the Lions, especially right now.
Some immediately engage and are honest about their feelings. Others stare you down for having the neck to raise the word, or Warren Gatland’s name.
SportsJOE was down at Thomond Park on Saturday and witnessed 50 intense minutes from Munster captain Peter O’Mahony against Toulouse. He wanted to play the full 80 but took a fearsome knee to his thigh and had to limp off with his side 24-9 ahead.
Following the game, I told O’Mahony about Ronan O’Gara’s prediction – if he had a good game against Toulouse he would make the British & Irish Lions squad.
O’Mahony stared back. ‘And… ?’ he seemed to suggest.
“Were you happy with your performance?” I asked. His features softened; glad he was not going to have to mention the word ‘Lions’. O’Mahony told me:
“I was happy enough, at times. Our lineout defence went well but to be fair in the end product there, Donnacha Ryan, Billy Holland and Dave O’Callaghan, they do all the homework, all the real graft and the extra few hours that it entails. All I have to do is jump when I am told to jump.
“That is actually the case. They do all the graft and massive credit has to go to them on that.
“I found it tough at times to get into the game but look when you go out and win a quarter-final at home against a team of the quality of Toulouse you have got to be happy.”
O’Mahony has gone from the outside of Ireland’s Six Nations squad, glaring in, to straight into the Lions back row conversation.
Exactly the type of guy the All Blacks would hate facing https://t.co/Rz8A9vwubV
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) April 2, 2017
On the most recent episode of The Ruck rugby podcast, The Times’ rugby writer Owen Slot suggested O’Mahony could certainly travel to New Zealand.
When he claimed, as Austin Healey had last week, that O’Mahony would be ‘unlikely to make the Test team’, Stuart Barnes perked up. The Times pundit, and former England outhalf, said:
“Oh I don’t know. I’m starting to think that he’ll HAVE to be the Test six [blindside].
“We’e talking about the players in open play but to beat the All Blacks, one of the key things you have to do is beat them at source. Now they’ve got an outstanding lineout – in Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick in particular and Kieran Read. And I’m looking at our lineout and, apart from George Kruis coming back, we haven’t any real lineout [winners] guaranteed…
“Best lineout forward in the back row, in the British Isles and Ireland, is Peter O’Mahony. If Billy Vunipola is going to be your number eight, to start, you’ve got to have your third lineout jumper and there’s none better than O’Mahony.
“In three weeks, he has gone from being an outsider for the tour to a real contender for the Test team.”
While these endorsements are genuinely getting us excited for the April 19 Lions squad announcement, picking O’Mahony at blindside could bump CJ Stander from not only the Test XV but the entire matchday squad.
Stander can claim lineout ball but he was not used frequently by Ireland in the Six Nations.
The Munster captain is charging right now but he will hope the next time he hears the word ‘Lions’ will be when his name is announced in the touring squad.
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