McCarthy is perfectly primed for Le Crunch

TYPICAL. Ireland uncover a brilliant lock forward who has the combination of talent and pure power to take on France’s fearsome pack as an equal.

And so the French decide it’s time to supersize.

Joe McCarthy has been the outstanding Irish player since the World Cup. Still only 22, he is 6ft 6ins and 17 and a half stone, but deploys his size differently to most Irish forwards.

He plays with a thrilling destructiveness more familiar in a French or South African second row, and when Andy Farrell selected him to start ahead of James Ryan in Marseille tonight, he declared Ireland’s intention to take on the French power game.

And then the French reshuffled their squad. Already fortified by the giant pairing of Paul Willemse and Pascal Gabrillagues, the French have now introduced another behemoth second row, a 19-year-old who is 6ft 4 and an astonishing 23 and a half stone.

Posolo Tuilagi, son of former Leicester and Perpignan flanker Henry, and nephew of England star Manu, comes in on the bench instead of Romain Taofifenua, who is ill.

With a number of other locks unavailable, Fabien Galthié has chosen Tuilagi, who plays for Perpignan and was a star on the French Under 20 team that beat Ireland well in the final of the World Championships last July.

However big his frame and his promise, Tuilagi is still a prospect, whereas McCarthy is fast establishing himself as a pivotal player in a Leinster team with grand designs on the Champions Cup.

The terrific form he has produced for the province made ignoring him at Test level simply impossible. Farrell’s selection was complicated by the decision to make Peter O’Mahony captain because with his place effectively guaranteed, it meant Tadhg Beirne, vital to the side, must stay in the second row.

That left one spot between McCarthy and Ryan, and on form, the choice was clear.

Were O’Mahony not leading the team out, then his place would have been vulnerable, but Ryan, along with Ryan Baird — another player in brilliant form this season — could be vital when they come off the bench in the second half.

They will only make an impact if the starters do their jobs, and this is the biggest challenge of McCarthy’s career so far.

He will win his sixth cap, making just his third start. His previous two came against Italy in a World Cup warm-up, and a try-scoring start in the rout of Romania in Ireland’s opening game at the tournament.

The step up in the Stade Velodrome will be a big one, but his senior career thus far has been a study in swift transition to a higher level. He made his Leinster debut just over two years ago, against Cardiff, and has played 28 times for the province so far, starting 19 of those. It’s not an extensive back catalogue, but his displays have been so consistently goods that selectors at provincial and national level have not been able to look past him.

Because of his bulk, he is excellent in the tight exchanges, but it is in the loose that he is at his most eye-catching. It’s no coincidence that it’s an image of McCarthy

tearing through a tackle that Leinster are using on their website to sell tickets for the last-16 fixture against Leicester in April.

McCarthy draws defenders like no Irish forward available to Farrell can do. Teams regularly have to commit at least two men to taking him down, and that creates space for opportunities if the ball is recycled quickly enough.

‘Destructive would be a word I’d use for him,’ was how O’Mahony put it yesterday, while Bernard Jackman revealed on the RTÉ rugby podcast last year that McCarthy was causing chatter in Leinster when he wasn’t long out of his teens.

‘Players are very good judges,’ he said, ‘and especially players who train or play with those players, and the talk about McCarthy for the last year and a half has been an excitement around what he could bring.’

Cullen is not a man to fill a player’s head with easy praise, but he has repeatedly lauded McCarthy’s impact, and his current form is likely to leave the Leinster chief with tricky selection calls once RG Snyman pitches up in the RDS for next season.

With McCarthy, Ryan and Snyman competing for two places, it should leave Leinster equipped with the best standard of secondrow forward in all of Europe.

Before that, though, McCarthy must be tested in the most challenging environment in the northern hemisphere (he will, once fit, confront the toughest in the game when he tours South Africa during the summer).

There is plenty of talk about Galthié freeing his players to an even greater degree than they have been so far in his liberating tenure. However, there will be no sevens-style, buccaneering play without the foundation provided by the forwards.

While the majesty of Antoine Dupont and his orchestration of attacking play has provided the signature style under Galthié, as impressive has been the set-piece consistency and discipline of the French forwards.

They will look to their pack to provide the base for a victory that is badly needed following the failure to win their home World Cup.

McCarthy will be to the fore in leading the resistance. Eddie O’Sullivan used to talk about the need to stand in the bearna baoil.

That is where McCarthy will be found tonight, in an environment where boys become men, where they must do.