McFADDEN STRENGTH RETURNS
AFTER Leinster’s defeat of Saracens, Fergus McFadden joined team-mates Johnny Sexton, Sean Cronin and Joey Carbery for a couples’ retreat to Dubai, a well-earned week off after a gruelling few months of Six Nations action before that Champions Cup quarter-final win.
For McFadden, it was nice to be able to put his feet up on the back of a heavy workload.
Last season he had far more free time on his hands than he would have liked, lining out only ten times for Leinster and not playing a single minute for Ireland after a thigh injury saw him sidelined for five months.
This time around, the versatile back has already clocked up almost three hours more on the pitch for the Blues while also featuring in the Six Nations defeats of France and Scotland.
However, while he is enjoying his current run of form he admits it was difficult to be a spectator as others impressed in his absence last season.
‘I just had to remain patient,’ he explains. ‘I was looking at things that were completely out of my control, guys in my position who were getting opportunities, taking them and playing well. I was out for five months so I couldn’t really do anything about that.’
He admits that the mental side of the game is something he has had to learn to deal with. With so much competition at both Leinster and Ireland, any slip down the pecking order can feel like a major setback. The manner in which he celebrated his try in the Champions Cup defeat of Wasps last season was an indication of how difficult the previous five months had been.
‘I think every professional sportsperson, and definitely rugby players, question themselves on a daily basis with different things, whether it’s mistakes in training, or selection doesn’t go your way one week. So it’s a constant mental problem but it’s about managing that and going back to managing the stuff that you can control.
‘You can’t control how someone else is going to play when they have their opportunity but you can just prep yourself as well as possible so that when you get yours, and I have thankfully this season, I’d like to think I’m good enough to keep my place.’
It also helps to know that your coach is in your corner. Despite various injury setbacks, when available for selection Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt has shown plenty of faith in McFadden, who will turn 32 in June.
If he can stay fit, he admits the 2019 World Cup in Japan is very much on his radar.
‘It would be an ambition for every player in Ireland to try and push to get on that plane and be there,’ he continues.
‘It is a long way away and for me last season, I wasn’t in the Six Nations squad, I had an injury plagued season and I came back for the last week of it just to be involved in the training.
‘This year it was the opposite. I went in at the start with the Six Nations squad, got a bit of game time. ‘I went in there probably knowing I was down the pecking order a little bit and would have to train well, and with a rub of the green get in there, and I did. I probably wouldn’t have got as much game time as I would have liked, but I was happy to add and be involved in a group that created history, so I take the positives.’
The problem for McFadden is the sheer number of contenders fighting for a jersey. Primarily used on the wing this season, at Leinster alone the Old Belvedere man faces a weekly battle with Adam Byrne, James Lowe, Jordan Larmour, Dave Kearney, Isa Nacewa and Barry Daly.
‘The competition in that area is probably particularly strong in Leinster and Ireland. It just means whoever puts on the jersey, given the week it is, needs to step up or you might not see any game time for a few weeks.
‘But for me it is about trying to bring what I have brought to games before and to evolve as well, learning from these young guys coming through.
‘The game has changed over the past few years in different ways and you have to keep evolving or you get left behind. So I would like to think someone like Jordan coming in would learn a little bit off me as well with his mentality, the way he attacks and does certain things.’
After getting the nod for the defeat of Saracens — even stepping up to kick a second half conversation — McFadden is hoping his experience will be called upon for the visit of Scarlets in the Champions Cup semi-final the weekend after next.
‘I’d like to think that resilience is probably one of my stronger qualities, so if anything, coming back even for that Wasps game last year, I got an opportunity off the bench, played well enough — that’s enough to justify the tough days that go with it for me.
‘Sometimes when you get knocked down, it’s about how you react when you come back and I thought I did well on that front anyway for the last year.’