Quiet man is proving a handful on pitch

Celtic League: He's a big bear of a boy, who was seemingly born to play this game. Straight off the Munster production line of talented, feisty forwards, he's the best thing to emerge from the province since Paul O'Connell.

Yet only now, it seems, has the path to fulfilment opened up for Denis Leamy.

Tomorrow evening's game against Llanelli constitutes something of a landmark day in what could be a breakthrough year for the 22-year-old.

He's in the starting team utterly on merit, ahead of the unfortunate David Wallace, and alongside all the other head honchos as the only uncapped player in the team. His learning curve is about to take a steep incline.

Strange to relate given he's only 22, but he's been through the ringer already to get even this toehold in the team. Shoulder and disciplinary problems interrupted his momentum two seasons ago, and last season he was just getting a run in the team when he damaged his cruciate ligaments in Edinburgh last November.

This season, he has quite simply been Munster's best player.

Converted into an openside by Munster coach Alan Gaffney, whether taking the ball up strongly in contact, bear-hugging opponents to the ground, scavenging at the breakdown with hands which Anthony Foley describes as "paws", he's been one of those omnipresent pain-in-the-ass number sevens.

"I suppose after coming back from the injury and a long time out, I'm really hungry for rugby. At the moment I'm really enjoying it and everything is going really well," he says, almost sounding a little starry-eyed about it all.

Jim Williams is as effusive as Gaffney in analysing Leamy, and likens him to a young George Smith, while Foley has followed his progress closely.

"He can do everything. He's not one of these players you can pigeonhole. He's quick, he's evasive, he's strong, he's got the biggest pair of hands you'll ever come across, and he's a good lad to boot. He's quiet, unusually for a Tipperary lad. The Tipperary lads I come across are very loud and obstreperous, and Denis is the quiet one."

Locating Leamy's best position will be the key to his success. He has, and can, play anywhere across the back row, and highly effectively at that. "And I'm not joking you when I say Mr (Keith) Wood has said he'd like to see him converted into a hooker," Foley add, citing the example of the recently converted Toulouse and French hooker-cum backrower William Servat, to which might also be added Steve Thompson.

The oldest of three boys and three girls, his father Kevin, a farmer, has been a player and president with their home-town club, Cashel. That's where Leamy started playing, and took such a liking to the game he asked to be sent to Rockwell College.

"I wanted to play rugby in school to get that bit more coaching and stuff. I was really enjoying rugby at the time and that was the game I wanted to play. So I went to Rockwell and it all took off from there."

That set him on the path, via the Irish Schools and under-21 sides, as well as the IRFU Academy, to today. "I've been blessed with the coaches I've had." Having won a Munster Schools' Junior Cup medal, in his first of three years on the senior team he was a centre, before reverting to number eight, where he also did some goal-kicking, and reached one senior cup final.

Watching him play with Munster this past couple of seasons, not to mention interviewing him, you wonder how such an easy-going, approachable lad earned a reputation for being a bit of a firebrand. There was a sending off for the Irish Schools in France, when he decked Frederic Michalak apparently, a suspension from an under-21 World Cup finals, as well as a suspension when cited by Old Belvedere.

Describing himself as "young and stupid at the time", Leamy says: "When I came out of school I maybe lost my way a little bit, getting involved in things I shouldn't have. I play aggressively, but I let things get over- aggressive. I was just getting a bad reputation with players and referees."

A watershed was the fall-out and suspension from the UCC-Old Belvedere match. "After that, I said that was it. I was finished messing around with that sort of thing. I decided to work hard on my discipline. Since then I've been very, very good. My penalty counts have been very low. I don't see it as a problem ever again."

Gaffney angrily maintains Leamy was victimised a little. "He's a very aggressive player, though off the pitch you wouldn't get a boo out of him. But Denis has been exemplary in my time here. His discipline and attitude have been first class."

Even Leamy's disciplinary record in the past doesn't unduly concern Foley. "You could say he's a bit unlucky as well, because when you're playing with 17-, 18-year-olds, you need players like Denis to stand up and take the brunt of it for the younger players. I kind of look at that in a good way, in that he's not willing to be led. He's more of a leader on the pitch, so when he comes into a situation where he's playing with more experienced players, you don't need to worry about him. He can look after himself. It's not a thing that will hold him back in the future."

Leamy hopes this could be a breakthrough year: "I'm in the side for Sunday, so that's a start. The competition for places is huge, and I seem to be in form at the moment, and that's great, but we'll just have to see further down the road how things go."