In the aftermath of making his Six Nations debut in last Saturday's encounter, John Ryan was told by Cian Healy that it had been the first time in 63 international matches that he hadn't packed down for a single scrum. Healy only came on for the last 25 minutes but it is still an intriguing statistic.
“Over half an hour? Pretty incredible,” says Ryan, whose 11-minute cameo was just his second taste of Test rugby.
In the early stages of Saturday's game, after the initial put-in by Conor Murray to Ireland's first two scrums, the Irish pack stayed down and only eventually nudged forward. They forced penalties both times and a warning was issued to the Scottish frontrow via Greig Laidlaw by referee Romain Poite. It had clearly been a preordained tactic and it looked like it might yield a bountiful reward.
Yet, when afforded a close-range penalty soon after, Ireland opted to go to the corner again, rather than press home their scrum advantage from five metres out. Ultimately, there would only be four more scrums, and none after the 47th minute, so Ireland’s one area of supremacy ultimately counted for little.
By comparison, Ryan was scarcely on the pitch against Canada when he and the Irish pack shunted the Canadians and won a scrum penalty. He is not complaining about his short time on the pitch against Scotland, except for the “hugely disappointing” failure to see out their comeback last Saturday.
Outstanding game
If somebody had told him at the start of this season that he would win his first cap in November and be playing in the first weekend of the Six Nations, he would have "bitten someone's arm off for that".
“It’s something I didn’t think would have happened so quickly, especially getting a cap in November. That stood to me and I came into this camp with a little more confidence,” he says.
“I was comfortable within the system, I knew the plays. And obviously there are new ones coming in every week and I got to know them as well. Without that cap in November, I probably wouldn’t have got on to the bench last weekend. I was delighted, it was a dream come true.
“My goal now is just to stick in there, try to get on that bench again. It would be great to get a start but Tadhg [Furlong] played an outstanding game at the weekend, and his scrums were brilliant. So it’s sticking in there, keep hanging on to Tadhg’s coat-tails for now and try, when I get on, to make a bit of an impact. And try to get a scrum the next time as well!”
However, with Furlong having missed Tuesday's session due to a "bruised shoulder" and with Finlay Bealham having returned to training, Ryan could either be thrust into his first Test start against Italy this Saturday, be on the bench again or miss out altogether.
Whatever awaits, he cites Italy’s first hour against Wales as evidence of the pressure the Azzurri scrum can bring to bear, as he also knows from playing Zebre and Treviso.
“They can mix it up a lot. They do different things. And a lot of the time they mightn’t even hook the ball. They might just look to shove over,” he says.
“One thing you notice about Italian scrums is that they can be 15 to 20 seconds long. That is one trait I noticed from playing against Zebre and Treviso, they are always long scrums so you need to have that scrum conditioning to make sure you keep your shape for that period of time and try to get yourself over that ball.
“And a lot of the times it can collapse and you can be left with a 50/50 call or else a reset. Look, there’ll be plenty of scrums in this game, I can guarantee you.”
First choice
Ryan only cemented his place as Munster’s first-choice tighthead this season and attributes his emergence to “a bit of confidence, a good run of games and a really tough pre-season focusing on scrums. That’s my reasoning anyway. Having started 15 games has done a lot for my confidence.”
Training, even against front-line Munster and Irish props, is one thing.
“But that only goes so far, when you’re coming up against these top English and French props in Europe and getting that exposure, that is key for progression, as a prop especially.”
As Ryan discussed in an interview in The Irish Times last month, he has suffered from ulcerative colitis, a long-term condition that results in inflammation of the colon, since 2011, before it flared up severely in October 2014.
“It knocked me out. I can barely remember the three or four weeks.” He was in bed for a month and went from 116kg to 108kg.
“It is common enough for males in their early 20s, their 30s, and it can develop into Crohn’s disease so that is not somewhere I want to be. If you don’t get the right medicine, you will end up having to get your colon removed,” he says.
Thankfully, his doctor helped to find him the right medication, and with infusions every two months, his diet and weight are no longer issues.
“I definitely don’t think I’d be here if I hadn’t found a cure for the ulcerative colitis and I am happy now that it is under control and is not really an issue any more, which is great.”
