Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)

And as impatient wondered about began..i did they ended

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JORDAN Larmour has made so many line breaks in both games against Northampto­n that I gave up counting. Late in the second game Jordan made a break up the touchline, leaving mayhem behind him. I just remember thinking very clearly, this is the moment. I looked around the Aviva. It was absolutely an epiphany.

It’s not the try at the end of the move that electrifie­s the place. It’s all Jordan. He’s sprinkled some magic there.

‘Well, that’s it’, I said to myself, the baton has been passed and it’s fast disappeari­ng off into the distance. People want sexy rugby and he gives it to them. For the last few years, the type of game I have played has not been sexy.

It helped the team win but it is not box office, not what the punter wants.

I see now how, with Leinster at least, it is going to unfold. A few weeks ago, I thought Jordan was the future. Now he is the present. He has arrived.

HE call lasted 90 seconds, two minutes maybe, and when I came back to the table I said nothing.

This captaincy in Royal County Down was Dad’s World Cup. I was conscious not to take anything away from that by sharing my little bit

TBACK at Leinster after the Rugby World Cup last year, Rob Kearney knew that Jordan Larmour was snapping at his heels to be first choice full-back for club and country. Kearn e y was sti l l expecting to start the Champions Cup pool game against Northampto­n in December and was surprised when Larmour got the nod.

Two days after the game, a phone call from the new Ireland head coach Andy Farrell brought the curtain down on Kearney ’s 15-year Test career.

Here in his new book, No Hiding – My Autobiogra­phy, he details that transition. of news. We were driving home in the car later – myself and my brothers Dave and Richard – when I mentioned it.

“I got the phone call just before lunch there. Andy Farrell. I’m done.”

The training squad for an in-season camp was being named the following morning. Andy Farrell had said that Ireland were having a Christmas camp, stocktake stuff. Forty-five players in. It’s only a one-day camp.

Yes?

He paused for a few seconds. “Rob, you’re not going to be in the squad.”

I was a little rattled and not sure how to react. I didn’t ask any questions. I literally just said, ‘Cheers, I appreciate the call. I’ll chat to you soon’. Hung up. That simple.

For a moment, I had half a thought about it being unfair. I’m the most capped full-back in the history of rugby union. Was I being a little precious in feeling I deserved a face to face?

What would that have achieved though? It’s elite sport. There has to be a ruthless element to it and very little sentiment.

IJUST went back in to the table to where the family all were and put on a brave face.

Forty-five players is a pretty deep pool not to be included in. It was quite conclusive.

Over Christmas I was thinking, does Andy Farrell think I’m the reason that we got knocked out of the World Cup? My pride was bruised.

It wasn’t so much the fact that I wasn’t in the squad, it was more that I had been the headline casualty. The talking point for the following week was me. There was a bit of embarrassm­ent to that.

I saw Stuart Lancaster the day after and he asked me if I’d had ‘the chat’. He knew. Stuart said that Andy needed to show change, that things would be different going forward.

Then I got to thinking that this was all joined-up thinking by Leinster and Ireland. Leinster had been trying to tell me as much in the previous weeks.

Leinster and Ireland had made a clear decision to make Jordan the number one full-back and to just roll with the punches from there.

But 15 years is a good run. More than I ever expected. When I was young and as impatient as these guys are, I only wondered about how careers began. I never knew how they ended.

The end, it seems, is like bankruptcy, it’s coming gradually for a long time and then, very quickly, it’s here.

 ??  ?? Rob Kearney: No Hiding – My Autobiogra­phy, published by Reach Sport is on sale from October 22 in all good bookshops.
Rob Kearney: No Hiding – My Autobiogra­phy, published by Reach Sport is on sale from October 22 in all good bookshops.

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