Richie Murphy understands the difference between making it fit and making it work on the pitch when it comes to selection. A head coach’s perennial conundrum is to get the best players in the right positions to maximise output and impact.
Further complications arise when players need to gel as a unit within the team structure; it’s a balancing act that requires intuition alongside a practised eye. Murphy displayed these qualities when assembling the current iteration of the Ulster backrow.
Cormac Izuchukwu had been used sparingly – his cruciate ligament tear and ensuing time on the sidelines notwithstanding – under Murphy’s predecessor Dan McFarland, primarily off the bench and usually as a secondrow.
Murphy handed the London-born, Tullamore-raised, Izuchukwu the number six jersey, identifying the player’s athleticism, speed and handling ability drawn from his days as a centre at school and wing with the Ireland Sevens.
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This evening, because of injury issues, Izuchukwu reverts to the secondrow, but his future may lie predominantly in the backrow. He went from a “skinny kid”, at 68 kilograms when switching from Coláiste Choilm in Tullamore to Cistercian Roscrea for the senior cycle in school to 105kgs by the summer of sixth year, a growth spurt that saw him stretch nearly half a foot to six-foot, seven inches.
His sporting prowess encompassed Gaelic football, hurling, basketball, athletics, rugby and pitch and putt. A portion of his sporting genes came from his mother Catríona, a cousin of the Offaly All Ireland hurling-winning brothers, Joe, Billy and Johnny Dooley.
His brother Chinnie won an All-Ireland title in 1,500 metres, ran cross country in the Ireland singlet and also competed internationally in the Mountain Running European Championships in France.
Cormac, or Izzy as he’s known to friends and team-mates, has definitely taken the road less travelled from Tullamore to Roscrea, a spell in Scotland at Kelso, where he switched to playing secondrow and number eight, to the Ireland Sevens and Under-20 programmes.
A succession of coaches, Ciaran Egan (Tullamore), Pieter Swanepoel (Cistercian Roscrea), New Zealander Gary Stevens (Kelso), Colm Tucker, Noel McNamara, and Kieran Campbell (all Ireland Under-20s) and Anthony Eddy (Ireland Sevens) recognised potential, smoothed rough edges but the player’s trajectory from raw novice to a potential international would not have been possible without Izuchukwu’s dedication to hard work.
The 24-year-old fought through setbacks of ill-timed injuries including a torn cruciate, but it is Murphy’s prescience that has given him the opportunity that he has grasped. His 30-metre gallop in the build-up to a try for Matty Rea in the Munster match was the sharp edge of an excellent all-round performance in Thomond Park, but one that followed on for several others.
The decision to play Izuchukwu as a blindside flanker of late is very much on trend in the modern game, where players who might previously be considered for the secondrow alone, like Ryan Baird, Tom Ahern, Evan O’Connell, Joe Hopes and Diarmuid Mangan to highlight a quintet, have the athleticism and speed to thrive in the backrow.
Izuchukwu was part of the Emerging Ireland tour to South Africa in 2022, as was David McCann, who was called up following a couple of injuries before the departure. McCann, 23, has taken a different pathway, an outstanding schoolboy player at RBAI, he played for Ireland at Under-19 and Under-20 levels, demonstrating both prodigious talent and leadership qualities.
Injuries were a bane earlier this season but happily restored to fitness, he’s adapted to a different remit. Ostensibly a blindside flanker or number eight in his underage career, Murphy has rehomed McCann in the seven jersey and to date it’s been a snug fit.
“Personally, it’s been good,” McCann said. “I played well at the start of the year, got injured which was disappointing, but I played my way back into a bit of form so it’s definitely positive in some ways when maybe there was other things going on.”
Nick Timoney is another premier athlete and something of a mentor on the days when Izuchukwu and McCann are housed either side of him in the backrow. The 28-year-old is seen as an openside flanker by the Ireland management. He holds a remarkable try scoring record, three tries in as many caps, the last against Fiji in 2022. A snapshot of his quality can be gleaned in that brilliant cover tackle on Calvin Nash the last day.
McCann said of his erstwhile backrow colleagues: “Izzy is special at times, so physical and athletic. He’s able to do some things that other people aren’t able to do. Nick is just really good at everything, it’s handy having those two on the pitch.
“Nick speaks a decent bit, but it’s more the way he speaks and the way he plays. He doesn’t leave anything behind, he’s straight and to the point and he is a direct person; people listen when he speaks and watch when he’s doing things.”
The game at the Aviva should have given the Ulster trio a crack at what is essentially, give-or-take, an Irish backrow in the blue of Leinster in Ryan Baird, Josh van der Flier and Caelan Doris, but the absence of Alan O’Connor, Kieran Treadwell and Iain Henderson prevented the collision.
Andy Farrell and his fellow Irish coaches will nevertheless watch closely and not just with the upcoming squad announcement for the two-Test tour to South Africa that departs at the end of the month.
An Emerging Ireland squad will head for South Africa once again in September/October and as the previous one demonstrated there is a pathway from the shadow national side to an Ireland senior cap.
But of more immediate concern is continuing to produce the collective cohesion that enables the individuals to shine and while the reshuffle might keep them apart as a backrow unit this evening Izuchukwu, McCann and Timoney won’t be too far apart, and in all probability at the epicentre of the action.
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