JOHN MULDOON INTERVIEW: GERRY THORNLEYon how knowing that interest in Galway and Connacht will be intensified by his selection is a source of pride for the backrower

YOU SHOW him the All Blacks team sheet and John Muldoon, as ever, looks first at the opposition backrow. Jerome Kaino, Richie McCaw and Kieran Read are the All Blacks’ first-choice trio. He muses aloud about these All Blacks being supposedly weak, reflects on Ireland having virtually a full team of absentees and asks: “Are they saying the strength in depth in Ireland is better than in New Zealand?”

Even in the hurling stronghold of Portumna, and even though he didn’t pick up a rugby ball himself until he was 14, Muldoon was aware of the All Blacks.

“That shows you how big they are. It will be a massive challenge, a massive opportunity and one I’m looking forward to.”

He expects the intensity and physicality will be unrelenting.

“There’ll be very little downtime. I suppose you have to adapt to that and feel your way around it. You don’t get much time to yourself to think about stuff. This is where mistakes will be punished. When you look at (Dan) Carter you want to be keeping your discipline. You don’t want to be giving him too many opportunities.”

He’s played for Ireland three times before, which is some help, but this is “a massive step-up” from playing Canada and the USA last summer and the Barbarians last Friday.

As daunting as the All Blacks are, it’s comforting to be playing alongside Brian O’Driscoll and others for the first time, and being in his current environment.

“It was great to get my caps on the North American tour and play in the Churchill Cup but in a sense this is going to be like my first cap.

“The fact that you’re playing with the top international Irish lads and against probably the best team in the world, it doesn’t get any bigger than this.

“I’m on tour with the big boys you could say,” he says with a chuckle “and it’s something I’m enjoying so far.”

This cap is also vindication of his decision to remain with Connacht a year ago when he could have moved to another Irish province.

“It’s nice to know that if we do well down in Connacht we will get recognised. I won’t say we did well but we did better. We didn’t achieve our goals but at least we put ourselves in a situation where we could have got our goals.

“But definitely it feels better to be representing Ireland and being a Connacht man, and not having something else beside my name.”

He’s a proud son of Portumna and Connacht, and nobody epitomises what the Cinderella/developmental/under-nourished province (dilute to taste) are about more than him.

He almost takes as much pride in Seán Cronin’s selection as he does his own.

By his own admittance, Muldoon struggled at the start of the season after his previous summer’s exertions, beginning his holidays when his Connacht team-mates were already back in training and resuming a little “undercooked”.

The weather-enforced post-Christmas break proved a godsend, individually and collectively.

“We put in a lot of good, hard, physical work. We had a small little area out the back (of the Sportsground) and it wasn’t nice in the freezing conditions but we did a bit of bashing against each other which stood to us. That and a little bit of freshness after a couple of weeks without a game helped.”

Knowing that interest in Galway and the rest of the province will be intensified by their selection is another source of pride, as well as amusement. It will be open season in Muldoon’s house in Galway this Saturday.

“There are a couple of my mates who are too cheap to fork out for Sky Sports and they all somehow have keys for my house. I’d say there’ll be about ten people in my house and I’m sure there’ll be a couple of establishments in Portumna that might be busy,” he says, laughing.

His parents John and Clare, a mix of a hurling dad and a mother who he reckons will be more panicky than he will be himself, and his siblings Ivan, Conor and Olivia might congregate to watch the game. His selection may even get a few of his ex-hurling coaches off his back.

“If you’re playing against the All Blacks and that doesn’t work, God help me; I don’t know what will. You’d imagine so.”