Dan Sheehan

he

yeah it's like do you know what he reminded me a lot of like a Dan Sheehan because Dan Sheehan's massive but he's able to you know get a good shift on he's able to get his darts right he's just able to kind of do his job properly He reminds me a lot of that.

I'm happy to be corrected, but I'm pretty sure Tom Howe is quite a rarity for Cardiff hookers in that he wasn't necessarily a back row.

He was always been a hooker, but he plays like...

later he might have been i think he only played in the first one um so like he's in a tricky tricky spot though I mean very

competitive like you know sometimes if it doesn't happen in the first few years you're kind of looking at the teams being like oh was it a bit of a kind of a false dawn as in they won the tournament but were they actually a great team because there was a 20 team that finished last that had like Dan Sheehan, Caelan Dorris and Tommy O'Brien so it's not a through line necessarily between like how a team does in the Six Nations but it's interesting that he is now as you say a really really

top We talk about this all the time and Leinster fans get it we wrecked the Leinster fans' heads with it but like do you come in and offer McNeice a full contract somewhere on big money like you let one of your more experienced players go and say look thanks for your service off you go to Bristol or wherever and you bring in McNeice on a big contract and you go right you're our man because it's really hard to shift those players from Leinster and the only way to do it is to offer them first team status and do it and you have to make a gamble on someone because at the moment all of the big apart from a dog bow really all of the big talented second rows that I can think of off the top of my head are coming through in one province And there's a backlog there, as we've talked about, with 10s down the years and other stuff.

And Leinster will have to fight to keep them, I think, because surely that's where the other provinces are going to go.

Often, Irish rugby would be will be quite prone to hiring a fellow with an accent with a similar profile and now we've got a fellow who has a clear accent with a great profile who's built his career brilliantly and I think it's a great reward for him and I think that's important for the other Irish coaches you've got the two most recent former under 20 coaches well not most recent because um Doak isn't in a job at the moment, but the two guys who succeeded in that job, Richie's up in Ulster.

I know that's not going great, but you're rewarding Irish coaches through the pathway.

So I think it's positive for a number of reasons, but I do think the most important thing is that he is, from what I hear from talking to people, a very very good coach a very progressive coach he's got ideas he's got energy he's innovative he's been working with some of the best players in the world he'll bring perspectives he's been to New Zealand with North Harbour he's been to South Africa with the Sharks he's been to France he's coached I think one challenge he'll have is that he coached Dan Sheehan who's his maths teacher he coached Caelan Dorris at every level from like under 16 up to under 20 and he's used to talking to these lads as young lads and they're used to him being their coach as a young lad he's getting them back now where they're Ireland captains and they've become...

Speak very

Okay, brilliant.

I suppose the key one is 13, what he'd do there, but I suppose you're probably safe enough to think that they might go with Andrew Porter at one, Dan Sheehan at two, Ty Furlong at three, Joe McCarthy...

And then it depends what they do, but will they do James Ryan with Ty Burns 6, Josh 7, and Sean Jansen 8, maybe? Yeah.

Now, that's even keen printer gas out, so I don't know.

Do you think

Dan Sheehan, like, because Gibson Park, man of the match, thought he was pretty good through fair, a few areas that, like, he just sees space, like, it's unreal, unbelievable.

I think something, he's levelled up in his passing, hasn't he? It's like he knows that he can spray the ball wherever he wants.

I'd love to

And same with Deegan, right? And a lot of people last week with...

Dan Sheehan lining out a date, like the main question from Leinster people was, is Max Deegan like must be fuming like this is a real insult to Max Deegan when you've two other experienced players there and a guy who has like even no different this week is captaining the team from the back row and he's not even in the squad from that perspective now I think he might have had a knock and that's why he wasn't there because that's the the main logic to it from that point of view but you know these are guys I think that I would agree with you they want to push into Ireland squads they want to make themselves available particularly when there's injuries to starting players for Ireland in the back row but But I think this is a good opportunity for them to establish themselves back in both the Connaught and Leinster team because they're struggling, I think, to get that foothold into the team.

Max Deegan has an obvious opportunity with both Conan and Doris out to really take a chance here now and establish himself.

Paul Boyle has a much harder task, but he's got a couple of games now to... like push of it