Tadhg Furlong makes bits out of 16-stone Dragons heavyweight

Patrick McCarry

Best centre of gravity in all of Irish rugby.

Leinster battered the snot out of Dragons at the weekend to get back on winning track in the Guinness PRO14. Tadhg Furlong had a bruising cameo that was our highlight of the game.

Bernard Jackman’s side clung onto the juggernaut for as long as they could but were thrown loose, just before half-time, when Josh van der Flier and Jack Conan worked a nice switch to make it 17-3. After the break, Leinster dropped the hammer.

Jamison Gibson-Park had already scored when his smart kick-through saw Jordan Larmour blitz a foot-race for the try-scoring bonus.

Larmour has kept up where he left off, in his debut season, and his final match figures were very impressive. He made 83 metres off 13 carries with four line breaks and 11 defenders beaten – the best return for a Leinster player in three years – while he was at it.

Gibson-Park helped himself to another, on 58 minutes, and you could only feel for Dragons. And then Furlong made his presence felt.

The Wexford tight-head, making his first appearance of the season, did a lot of damage in his 27 minutes on The RDS pitch.

After the 52-10 blow-out of the Welsh region, there was a lot of understandable praise for Van der Flier, Gibson-Park, Larmour and Johnny Sexton. We almost take Furlong’s instant impact for granted and the game was said and done by the time he entered the fray.

Still, behold one hell of a try.

It all starts, 62 minutes in, when Larmour checks back inside after taking a pass from Rob Kearney. Momentum is lost and Gibson Park shuttles the ball left and left again until Furlong quite literally raises his hand – Mine!

Whatever momentum Furlong had was lost, though, as Gibson-Park faked left before jinking inside Ross Moriarty and popping up an offload.

Furlong took one forward stride before he pouched the pass and had to generate all the steam from that. He also had to take the pass up high, over his head, and with Ollie Griffiths haring over and ready to put him down.

What happened over the next five metres, and four seconds, is what makes Furlong one of the most dangerous forwards in world rugby.

Griffiths – all 105 kilos and 6-foot-1 of him – had Furlong lined up and he gave it his all with a tackle to the midriff. The forward simply bounced off Furlong and slumped to the ground.

Next up was centre Adam Warren. Furlong went through him like he wasn’t there.

Brok Harris ended up making 20 tackles in the game (a crazy number for a loosehead) but he could not stop Furlong from a yard out.

Credit: eir Sport

Three lads threw their best at the Ireland international but all failed to prevent his try.

The final nail in a coffin-ful of nails was applied by Scott Fardy with minutes to spare. Leinster racking up half-centuries again, and they’re only warming up.

Check out the match highlights here: