There is a combative look to James Ryan these days. A fuller beard and mildly burnished from Quinta do Lago’s occasional sun, the Ireland secondrow has been hitting form over the last few months. In front of the cameras and microphones Ryan always keeps his game face on. The lock is one of those unusual players, like Brian O’Driscoll, who played for Ireland before Leinster, a footnote in history that will always follow him.
The recent run of Champions Cup matches, especially Leinster’s away match against La Rochelle, have been good for hauling up standards and forcing players to meet levels they can expect to face against England in the opening Six Nations match on Saturday. For that Ryan is thankful as he pushes to be at the forefront of stand-in head coach Simon Easterby’s thinking on Thursday when the team is announced.
Although Sunday was a day of relaxation and golf for some on the resort’s South Course, host to the Portuguese Open eight times, the Algarve is also a chance to get the Irish lineout more streamlined. Ryan, along with Tadhg Beirne and coach Paul O’Connell, are aware that it was an area that can be improved, with the mild Portuguese weather a friend to extended outdoor sessions at their state-of-the-art training facility at The Campus. Ryan would be one of several players to call the Irish lineouts.
Who will start at 10 for Ireland during the Six Nations?
“Yeah, it’s a couple of us,” he says. “I wouldn’t say it’s on one person because there’s so many variables. Like there’s the speed of jump, there’s the lift, there’s the throw. There’s the weather, there’s what the opposition are doing.
“So I think it’s oversimplifying it to say it’s just on the caller, but certainly in here, there’d be several of us alongside Paulie [O’Connell] that would work together in terms of putting together a plan and a menu as opposed to just one person. At every area now in the international game everything is a contest – in the air, on the ground. That’s just the reality, but we’ve a good plan in place. We’ve been working hard on it and hopefully we should be good to go for England next week.”
If there is another aspect of Ryan that is visible it is the quiet confidence and certainty around his game, which is again robust. Possibly the addition of the force of nature that is Joe McCarthy and his sharp elbows in the secondrow hierarchy has forced more established players to kick on, but Ryan’s bicep injury towards the end of last season had also kept him low for a time.
Now his carries his edge in matches, and again the ability to stand out among a stellar cast made his recent signing with the IRFU until 2028 a straightforward decision with a settling affect.
Extras on the pitch have included a conscious effort to improve ball-carrying, where off-pitch conversations with Seán O’Brien, a once powerful backrow carrier, has given him cues and ideas on how to be more effective. What Ryan has also been interested in – and something else O’Brien had in spades – is edge on the pitch. It has resulted in a higher penalty count across the team but for Ryan edge means everything in Test match rugby.
“Yeah, we definitely want to push the boundaries and for us it’s getting the balance right between the avoidable and the unavoidable penalties,” he says. “Sometimes when you play on the edge you’re going to give penalties away that are unavoidable.
“We don’t want to take that licence away from us to get after a team physically. But then there’s the avoidable ones like offsides or playing the nine, little ones that we don’t necessarily need to give away and that put us under pressure. So trying to cut out the avoidable ones is a big thing for us this month.”
It is imperative for Ireland to play with that frame of mind against England.
“Yeah, I think so,” he says. “If you’re not playing on the edge at this level that’s just not going to go too well for you. It’s just getting the balance right and trying to take those ones [bad penalties] away, that we don’t need to give away, out of our game. I think Irish teams are at their very best when we’re on the edge.”
A new contract, dipping his toe into the business world with Dash Burger, an upward spike in performance and a more battle-hardened Ryan has moved into a different phase of his rugby career with different aspects of his life coalescing around him. With that comes clarity and different perspectives for the 28 year old.
“Yeah, I think I’m playing better this year at this point probably than I was last year,” he says. “I’m feeling good. I don’t know if I’m suddenly playing well, I’d like to think I was playing pretty well towards the end of last season as well, when I got back from my bicep. But, yeah, I feel I’m in a good place.
“Playing for Ireland has given me so much. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do since I was so young. I feel like my game is in a good place, and I also feel that hopefully our best days for Ireland are ahead of us.”
To find that out Ryan won’t have to wait long, with England the first challenge to Ireland’s bid for three championships in a row.
