He was as disappointed as anyone with the way Ireland’s campaign ended, but as he aims to challenge for success with Leinster in the coming weeks, Joe McCarthy has stressed the Six Nations is very much in the past.
Having started every game during their march towards the championship in 2024, McCarthy was looking to help Ireland secure a third title on the bounce. Yet despite securing a Triple Crown with just three rounds played, a comprehensive 42-27 defeat to France at the Aviva Stadium saw Ireland finishing third in the final standings.
This made it a somewhat underwhelming campaign for McCarthy, who missed the opening two rounds of the championship. But a month on from the end of the tournament, his focus has very much switched back to provincial rugby.
Will Champions Cup blowouts come back to haunt Leinster?
“You’re disappointed after it [the France game]. You missed the opportunity, but you had a game the next week [against Italy] we tried to get up for. We probably didn’t play our best even again the next week, but there is definitely just a good feeling now. We’ve kind of moved on from that and we’re trying to chase down success with Leinster now,” said McCarthy.
He couldn’t have asked for a better return to Leinster duty as his two appearances for the province since the end of the Six Nations have been in utterly emphatic wins in the knock-out stages of the Champions Cup.
After crossing the whitewash in a 62-0 success over Harlequins in the Round of 16 win at Croke Park, McCarthy lasted the full 80 minutes in the secondrow when Leo Cullen’s men defeated Glasgow Warriors 52-0 in last Friday’s quarter-final at the Aviva Stadium.
Even though they amassed 18 tries across these two games, a lot of praise has been heaped upon Leinster for completing two successive defensive shutouts and McCarthy acknowledged he and his colleagues take great pride in being so difficult to break down.
“We definitely would be thinking about it, especially when clearing out a defensive set or a scrum near our line. We’re definitely talking about defending and not giving them anything easy.
“Our mindset is we’re going after them as hard if the game was super tight in the last minute as we are in the first minute. It was definitely the mindset of not giving them any easy scores.”
Last seen in United Rugby Championship action against Munster on December 27th, McCarthy is set for a return to the competition when Ulster pay a visit to the Aviva this Saturday evening for a 7.35pm kick-off.
He is one of five players who will be assessed later in the week before a decision is made about his availability for this weekend’s game, along with Jack Conan, Ryan Baird, Rob Russell and Will Connors. But McCarthy’s younger brother Paddy is edging back towards full fitness following a recent lay-off.
In his first season as a member of the Leinster squad, Paddy was sidelined for a number of months before he eventually saw game time off the bench against the Stormers and Ospreys earlier in the season.
Although the promising prop also featured for Ireland A in their game against England A at Ashton Gate in Bristol on February 23rd, another injury picked up in training shortly afterwards ruled him out of contention for some of Leinster’s recent fixtures.
The elder McCarthy knows from experience that injuries can happen when a player steps up from an academy squad to a senior set-up, but he is hopeful his brother won’t have any more setbacks in the near future.
“He’s had a tough season with injuries. He got injured in training a week after that England v Ireland A game. I found that myself. When you come up to senior rugby, it probably takes a little bit of time to adjust. He’s probably going through that now, so hopefully he can have a good run now until the end of the season,” the elder McCarthy said.
