When Joe McCarthy lined out against Australia for 21 minutes in the 2022 November internationals, few then would have believed that within months he would be going to a World Cup and become a team fixture.
A starting lock for this year’s entire Six Nations Championship, the recent bicep injury to James Ryan and the rise of McCarthy has been a story of drastically differing fortunes for the two Irish players.
A man of the match performance in Ireland’s opening game of this year’s Six Nations in Marseille heralded the big time arrival of McCarthy, who was 23 years old last week. He is both a key figure in this weekend’s Leinster side and potentially a pivotal figure in Ireland’s campaign for the next two World Cup cycles.
McCarthy has run the gamut of emotional peaks and troughs from the World Cup disappointment to back-to-back Six Nations Championships. Now at club level, with Leicester arriving to the Aviva Stadium for the Champions Cup knockout phase, the weekend again offers up possibilities than can wreck or charm a season.
“Everything we talked about when we came back in . . . what do you want to get out of it? You want to win two trophies,” says McCarthy.
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“There’s a lot of young players in our team that haven’t won any trophies with Leinster, including myself. It’s a big focus, but we know that we just need to worry about performing this weekend.”
The enthusiasm and wonder of playing at this level remains with McCarthy. He is on a rising curve, is being carried along at pace after a career-changing year and is comfortable with the speed of change. He is getting prime game minutes, and he expects to improve with time. His age and natural physical presence allow him that small conceit.
“Personally, I definitely feel I am myself as a player in a really good spot,” he says. “We’ve a class coaching team. Everyone is hungry.”
Much of that comes from the confidence placed in him by Andy Farrell and the Six Nations and the springboard from there into the lap of the Leinster coaching team and system.
“It was unbelievable because to play in every game is class,” he says of the Six Nations. “It’s exactly what you want. I’ve had a few campaigns within the Ireland camp and it’s still class because you get all the coaching, you get all the bits when you’re in the squad, but you don’t get actually to be there much on the match days.
“To get backed by the coaches was unbelievable for the five games. It was class. I felt like I got a lot better and probably got a lot more confidence after playing those five games against all the European nations. I felt good after it.”
England was the grit in Ireland’s ointment in Twickenham and McCarthy will likely be reacquainted with some of those international faces, whose club home is in Welford Road.
But it’s a completely different vibe, Leinster and Champions Cup compared to Ireland and the Six Nations Championship. If players tried to, they could overthink it as some sort of re-enactment of the loss in London.
For McCarthy, the idea of any minor acts of revenge would be more of a distraction than an incentive to win. Motivation is a quarter-final place in the Champions Cup; there’s little room for drama and reprisal.
“We haven’t mentioned it at all, to be honest,” he says of the Twickenham disappointment. “It’s very different, you’re playing for Leinster. They still play a bit differently, even though there’s aspects obviously with the English players, but we haven’t really spoken about that.
“It’s a knockout game for the Champions Cup, so I don’t need much more added motivation. We’re looking to try and win because we want to win the Champions Cup. All focus is on just winning this game. I find you can’t get too involved and overthink individual battles because it’s a team performance you’re looking to get.”
He always likes having the ball in his hands, he says, joking that he may have ADHD. At home with his brother – Leinster player Paddy – they fling the ball around the house “offloading, stuff like that”.
He says he finds that the best way to learn his rugby lines is by always having a ball in his hands. It showed against the Bulls when a little flick out the back put James Lowe down the right touchline and into the corner.
“It was just an off-the-cuff [action] in the moment,” he says. “Put James into a bit of space and he usually does pretty well with it.”
Funnily, when Lowe was asked about the try, he gave McCarthy all the credit.
The fans have noticed too. McCarthy’s size at 6ft 6ins, his impact and his relative youth have not gone unnoticed. Recognition comes in lots of different ways.
“There were a few kids in autograph alley had a mullet,” he says. “A few better mullets than my hair anyway. Leinster is big when you’re in it. But the Ireland Six Nations is way bigger. It’s kind of crazy. You do get noticed a bit more.
“You’re with your mates and someone asks you for a photo, your mates are like ‘Jesus, look at that, who do you think you are now?!’ It’s all pretty positive . . .”
And it has been for the last 18 months.
