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27th September 2019
05:51pm BST
It’s only been 216 days since Jack Carty made his senior debut for Ireland, coming off the bench against Italy in Rome, but he’s now taking the reins at 10 for Ireland in a crunch Rugby World Cup Pool A game.
Ireland face Japan in their own backyard in what should be another stern test of their credentials, and they do so without Johnny Sexton. After taking a knock in Ireland’s 27-3 win over Scotland last weekend, Sexton has dropped out of the squad entirely after handing place-kicking duties over to Conor Murray in that game. Add in the fact that regular deputy Joey Carbery is making his own comeback from injury, and can only make the bench this week, and Ireland alarm bells are jangling.
Cue existential crisis, right?
Not a hope. Connacht’s Carty has been dropped in to start on the world’s biggest stage. Despite both our regular fly-halves being absent, there’s actually plenty of cause for excitement, for him and for Irish fans.
Carty saw off Leinster counterpart Ross Byrne, and offers an exciting kicking game coupled with brilliant, opportunistic play that could be the difference against a side like Japan. It’s only his second start at 10 in the green of Ireland, though, which brings a certain kind of pressure on the 27 year old’s shoulders.
Speaking on SportsJOE’s brand new Rugby World Cup preview show JOEpan, one-time Connacht man Jerry Flannery says it’s something Joe Schmidt would have been noting in training;
“Well I'm sure over the course of his involvement with Ireland, Joe Schmidt has been probing that and testing it, because you don't want to try and find out by dropping him into a test game and see if the guy can handle the pressure. Joe will have watched him play for Connacht, watched when he's performed under pressure. And then, through Ireland training sessions would be trying to really put him under pressure there and see how he responds. And some players, some players go into their shell, and they try and hide, some guys respond to it and I think that he's not going to be selected unless Joe feels that he's ready to do it.”Despite playing u20’s rugby for the national side, Carty has been a quintessential late bloomer, impressing for Connacht and being instrumental in their brand of attacking, dynamic rugby. Fla reckons it’ll stand to the Athlone-born kicker;
“things happened for him a little bit later in the game, so he's quite mature and he's really impressed me. So, I'm hoping that... He's come on in the last few games for Ireland, when the games have been relatively open, and he's brought in, obviously I've spoken about his kicking game, but he's been looking to move the ball, he's been really positive. What will be interesting to see is if the game is tight, is he able to manage it? Will he be able to manage it and apply pressure? If the game is tight, and Ireland don't have momentum, well then obviously it's how we apply pressure to the Japanese. Because they're going to try to play themselves out of territory all the time, so if they're in their own half they're going to try and play out of there. And I think that that's going to be a real good test for him, and it will see him evolve as a player.”You can watch more from Jerry on Ireland v Japan, South Africa v Namibia and the Tier Two tussle between Georgia and Uruguay in the full episode of JOEpan right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBnCKyEYPeM
