Cronin not one to step back from challenge

IRELAND v SAMOA:THE MESSAGE to take home today is not to show any direct or implied disrespect to Connacht when hooker Seán Cronin is within earshot.

This week’s replacement for the rested Rory Best and the injured Jerry Flannery doesn’t see such a big step up from the Magners League to international level despite what people might infer about Connacht’s playing status relative to the swaggering Heineken Cup provincial three.

This week there is the matter of Connacht beating the Samoa midweek team with a largely diluted side. That welcome scalp aside the Ireland hooker will hear no talk about the prospect of him having to take a bigger step up this weekend simply because he plays for Connacht in the Amlin Challenge Cup. He points out it is no kindergarten.

“You know, that’s probably a comment that will be thrown out every so often. But the way I look at it is, we (Connacht) played Bayonne in the Challenge Cup a few weeks ago and we beat them. I think they’re only four points behind Racing Metro, who Leinster played,” he says in a brief but surreal tract of conversation whereby he’s defending Connacht having just been picked for Ireland.

“That’s the way I look at it. If you’re going up against sides like that, coming out on top and actually playing well . . . yeah, look, it will always be put to you that the Heineken Cup is the elite of the club scene. I just look at situations like that and take what I can out of it. I’m just confident in my own ability.

“Gav (Duffy) and John (Muldoon) were on the tour in the summer and John was a bit unlucky to break his arm against New Zealand. He played very well against the Barbarians. It’s great that we’ve upped the representation with players coming in and out and Brett Wilkinson has been involved as well. We can always step back into the Connacht fold and try to bring stuff back into the province. It kind of gives the whole place a lift and ups the Connacht Rugby stature within the city. It’s all been positive.”

You like what you hear from Cronin, who started in Ireland’s two Tests against New Zealand and Australia in the summer tour. Like his play, in conversation he doesn’t step back and like the way he moves in broken play, his thinking is nimble too.

There’s surety but little arrogance in the 24-year-old, who comes into a newly-configured frontrow with John Hayes and Tom Court. But with four caps he’s still at a stage where he must prove a point, illustrate to Kidney that he is not one of the players the coach should push to the back of his mind and only allow out under duress.

“Obviously that tour was massive for me in trying to get a bit of experience,” he says. “I’m just looking at the weekend as another opportunity to get to put on the jersey. I thought I did okay in the summer Tests, just okay. I think I’ve a lot more to offer and I’ve a lot more to try to improve. I’m just glad to be getting the chance and hopefully I can go out and do the stuff.”

One of Cronin’s principal acts, apart from his head to head with the Samoan hooker, is to hit the Ireland jumpers in what may transpire to be an overblown problem in the lineouts. Devin Toner, earning his first cap, will be his main target. But Limerick’s former Ardscoil Rís student from Castletroy has been hitting Toner all along the under-age international routes to senior level. There is no terror there.

“It was kind of funny, you’re walking by and everyone is turning their heads back to get a glance at him,” he says of the 6ft 10ins Toner’s first impact on Ireland squad members. “I’ve gotten over the wow factor of how tall he is now but he’s a big lad, alright.”

It’s an interesting lineout, a first cap running it and the main target; a fifth cap throwing it.

“I know it might be Dev’s first cap but Dev has been playing Heineken Cup rugby,” adds Cronin. “He was an essential part of the team which beat Saracens over in London and he’s been going very well. Fair enough, it’s his first cap but the coaches have a lot of confidence and the players have a lot of confidence and I’m sure he’s going to step up big time.”

He admired Keith Wood. He understands the modern hooker to be a bit of a mongrel, a flanker, a runner and a scrummager. Playing for Connacht, well that’s just a bonus.