Earls learning to lead from the front

YESTERDAY MORNING he sat at home in Limerick contemplating the day ahead. Facing Scotland on Saturday in the last match at Croke Park might have been an overwhelming thought but not on Wednesday. He would be leading out the St Patrick’s Day parade with his three-year-old sister Jenny on his knee, evangelising the game by tossing 200 mini rugby balls from the lead car to the crowds on the street.

Keith Earls was asked if he would like to be the parade marshal by the mayor of Limerick, a Thomond man Kevin Kiely, who is also president of the rugby club. A Lions tour in the summer; a regular place on the Irish wing; a growing try count and now the main man at the Limerick parade. Another landmark in a city that values its rugby and its players.

“It’s good to get home as well to see a couple of people,” says Earls. “It’s a massive honour in Limerick. I’d know the mayor. He’s a Thomond man like myself. I’d know him quite well, he asked would I do it and I said, ‘yeah’.

“It’s good, you don’t have to live and breathe rugby. I had a chat with Deccie (Kidney) about it and I didn’t want it to look that I was kind of forgetting about the game three days before the Test.”

The Wednesday before a Saturday match is a down day for the players and in recent weeks Earls has been hanging around Dublin nursing a groin niggle. Last week he headed into the city with Tomás O’Leary and a few friends and bought himself a guitar. The scrumhalf and the winger are now beginner-chord terrorists in the Irish camp. Earls is also building a reputation as a defence line insurgent too. His strike rate after two against Wales now stands at six tries.

“Six out of nine and Saturday will be my 10th cap so I’m happy enough with that, I’m over the 50 per cent,” he says acknowledging that he has become more comfortable around the squad and slotting in on the wing or in the centre, as he did when Gordon D’Arcy hobbled off last week.

“I’ve even got more confident around the squad. It’s good to have a good game and good to be a regular this season,” he says. “I’m more relaxed and there’s a good buzz about training. I’m getting involved more. I’m enjoying the wing now, but obviously 13 (centre) I was enjoying before I came into the Irish camp with Munster. I think the fullback thing has kind of slipped away a bit so hopefully that will be in my future.”

When Earls first came into the squad, there was a concern his versatility could turn him into a slot-in player rather than one who was a fixture in one position.

“I was (concerned) a couple of months back,” he explains. “I didn’t want the number 22 jersey but unfortunately with Luke’s injury it gave me a chance to show my versatility. With Darce (D’Arcy) and Drico (O’Driscoll), if they go off I can go in at 13, so I suppose it works both ways.”

It will be Earls’ first match at senior level against Scotland and the last Test to be staged at Croke Park. The Triple Crown is another aspect and while Ireland have been freely pocketing the silverware in recent years, Earls has always carried a sense of the importance of the Triple Crown through his father, Ger. The winning of it is a serious affair.

“It’s surreal,” he says. “It’s strange when my father talks about ’85 and the Triple Crown, it’s historic. Now I’ve a chance to go down in history as well. It’s a brilliant feeling but its going to be a tough day. It means a lot to Deccie and the players. We need a bit of silverware at the end of the day. It’s still the best of the home nations. It’s a great achievement.”

The players believe they can win but don’t expect to without the spilling of sweat.

“It’s going to be tough, they’re physical. They’ve been playing really good rugby this year. They nearly caught Wales in Wales and got a draw against England. They’re going to come over here to beat the big fish,” he says. “I think Wales got a couple of tries against them when they had a couple of sin-bins. Maybe if their discipline was good, the results would have been different.”

In Luke Fitzgerald’s absence, the stand-in pageant king is content to shape the wing to his size and fit. Kidney has been impressed and Limerick too sees something it likes in the 22-year-old, now one match from a Triple Crown. Mayor Kiely made a good call.