McGrath heads new line of loosehead likely lads

Irish props haven’t exactly been falling out of the trees in the professional era. The durability of John Hayes, especially, and Marcus Horan covered a multitude but now, on foot of Cian Healy’s emergence at world-level and David Kilcoyne breaking into the Munster and Irish set-ups last season, another batch of likely young lads are starting to cut up trees.

Augmenting James Cronin’s impressive start to the campaign with Munster, Jack McGrath has hit the ground running for Leinster.

McGrath not only survived, but emerged in credit from an 80-minute effort against, first, fellow 23-year-old Joe Rees and then Lions tighthead Adam Jones, making five carries in the move which culminated in his 70th-minute try against the Ospreys, having deftly created the first try for Richardt Strauss.

'Going great guns'
"I think Jack is going great guns," enthused Greg Feek yesterday. "He had a good pre-season and a good off-season. He ended last season really well and it's good to see him doing 80 minutes.

“He got through a power of work in the last 10 minutes of the game. Maybe he needs to work harder if he’s still doing that,” quipped the Leinster scrum coach.

As encouraging for Leinster has been the emergence of 22-year-old tighthead Martin Moore. Leo Cullen had been extolling his virtues since pre-season over a year ago.

“Marty is certainly in the frame now,” added Feek, “and hopefully with more game time and a bit more experience at a high level against wily old props and a higher-paced game he’ll slowly grow as well.

“Jack’s had two or three years at that now and he’s been raring to go. He’s been a chained-up dog for the last 12 months anyway.”

With Heinke van der Meuwe having moved on, and given the high attrition rate in the frontrow demands rotation, both should develop further this season, and 23-year-old Jack O’Connell (an unused replacement on Saturday) is in McGrath’s slipstream.

Given their age profile, they ought also to be able to adapt to the new scrum regulations, which have take the emphasis away from the hit and restored straight feeds.

Feek, like most scrum coaches, has been avidly watching games to ascertain their effect.

Less neck injuries
One of the immediate spin-offs, he envisages from player feedback, will be less neck injuries, and agrees there have been less collapsed and re-set scrums.

Nonetheless, he will be seeking clarification on whether a scrum has to be square and stable before the scrumhalf’s feed, and thus whether feeding a slightly skewed scrum constitutes a crooked put-in.

“We just need to get that sorted,” said Feek. “I think that will stop a lot of the messiness as well around teams trying to do that. It’s new, it’s growing and hopefully in another two or three weeks we can start to see what they wanted from the start: less collapses and less re-sets and more game time.”

The changed dynamics, according to Feek, have placed greater emphasis on the stance of frontrows, with some referees more prepared than others to afford frontrows time to re-set if too cramped on engagement.

Feek didn’t agree with Leighton Hodges’ decision to sinbin Seán Cronin, but has some sympathy for referees.

“It was a bit of a curveball and it was frustrating but we’ll move on. We know next time we play Ospreys it’s going to be a different, if not bigger, challenge.”

The draw leaves Leinster with just two wins in their last nine meetings with the Ospreys and, following on from last season’s pool exit, was a reminder of the difficulties they face in their Heineken Cup group.

"I was watching Castres as well on the weekend beating Toulon," said Kevin McLaughlin, "and the Ospreys are just our bogey team, we've always struggled against them.

'A class side'
"They're a class side, they play good rugby and probably play quite similar to us, which is why we find it so difficult with them. But it just told us we're going to have to up our game significantly over in Wales to beat them in the Heineken Cup."

Opportunity is liable to keep knocking for the prop tyros given Michael Bent is “still a wee way away yet” due to the damaged nerve in his neck, although Healy resumed training yesterday.

“Cian’s not too bad,” said Feek. “We’ll see how he goes the next couple of days. He’s an animal who needs to play, so he’s an option.”

The likelihood is Healy, Jamie Heaslip, Rob Kearney and Brian O’Driscoll will return to action in the next few weeks, perhaps at home to Cardiff on Friday week, eight days before a trek to Thomond Park and a fortnight before the Heineken Cup opener at the Ospreys.

Leinster are “hopeful” Fergus McFadden will be fit for Friday’s trek to Glasgow, semi-final opponents in each of the last two seasons, and are “confident” about Luke Fitzgerald’s involvement.

But with skipper Cullen sidelined for a month, there was no word on Seán O’Brien or Quinn Roux.