DAN: I’M NOT ONE FOR PANIC

LISTENING to Dan Leavy speak, it’s hard to imagine this character would ever get panicked.

On and off the pitch, the Leinster flanker exudes a confidence that’s in line with his rise in status.

So when Joe Schmidt talks about inexperienced players getting “spooked” in the heat of Test battle, it’s not something that probably applies to this poacher supreme.

“At the end of the day, it’s the same game,” Leavy (above against Italy and below yesterday) said. “I wouldn’t say it’s a way bigger stage.

“They’re all must-win games.

France away from home is pretty tough so I’d say it’s quite similar.

“I’ve been here for about 18 months, came in last November and I’ve been in camps since so I’m very well used to the high pressure environment.” So he’s not easily spooked?

“I’m very jumpy if someone jumps out, like, to scare me in a different scenario,” Leavy replied. “Anything like that I’m very, very jumpy but in terms of before a game, no I wouldn’t be.”

He’ll make his fourth Six Nations appearance on Saturday but Leavy admits there was one occasion when he was thrown – and understandably so.

When Jamie Heaslip pulled up in the warm-up ahead of the

England game last March,

Peter O’mahony was promoted off the bench into the line-up – and Leavy went from 24th man to a replacement role, eventually coming on to help Ireland to a famous victory.

“Usually when you’re the 24th man you’ve been kind of watching a player who has been carrying a knock or something,” he recalled.

“We were walking in to the dressing room and I was expecting Joe to tell me, ‘You might get an opportunity next year, blah, blah, blah’.

“Then it was, ‘Here’s the 20 jersey, you’re in’. I was talking about not getting spooked and then a few minutes later it’s like, ‘Listen, here we go’. But then it was fine once we got out.”

The 23-year-old added: “I was going to have a shower and a protein shake.

“So it was a pretty big flip, two minutes later I’m walking out in the tunnel for the biggest game of the season with fireworks going off.”

Leavy lapped it up, as he did when he replaced Josh van der Flier in this year’s opener against France and performed superbly.

The bigger occasion, the bigger he wants it.

“It’s a bigger scale and there are more people watching it but you always want to perform,” said the Dubliner. “How difficult is it? It is another step up, definitely. The intensity is a bit higher, the quality of players could be a little bit higher because they’re drawn from a bigger pool again.

“But I’m hoping to be able to push on. I’ve had a few starts and I really want to become one of the first names on the teamsheet in this team.”