UNCONVENTIONAL PATH TO SUCCESS
IT’S not that far from the penthouse to the pavement, with Leinster hooker Dan Sheehan recently picking up a timely reminder of just how determined his opposite number Curtis Langdon has been through his career.
If there is a fine line between the talent available at the top end of the amateur game and the professional game, then Langdon (inset) – who has had a spell in the fifth and two spells in the fourth tier of English rugby – is a prime example.
As it was Sheehan, Tadgh Furlong, Andrew
Porter and Ronan
Kelleher attended the recent
TerenureClontarf
AIL clash.
“Marty
Moloney was back playing,
John McKee was playing, there was a good few Leinster lads playing so we said we’d go down,” said Sheehan. “There is a definite respect for those who put so much time in at that level, sure I played three seasons of AIL. “It’s a good part of the game and one that’s growing, we saw the crowd that Terenure packed out in the semifinal, and then
“We’re getting to a point where we’re fully bought into it and I think everyone believes in it, 100 perc ent.
“Then it’s just how well you can execute it and stay on top of the little things, evolving in our defensive system.”
Leinster come into the game with the majority of the team having been rested for the past two weekends – a latter-day chance for those who played in the Six Nations to take a well-earned half-break
“It is only natural that this part of the season bodies aren’t 100 per cent but you have to front-up a little bit, you gotta play with niggles or whatever.
“But as a professional player in the Leinster and Irish squad this is the most exciting part of the season, you have to bring everything.
“We’ve come up short how many times the last couple of years and we know what it means to this club. a good crowd on Sunday. I think you see the lads who’ve come up, we had Conall Boomer, he’s playing out in Chicago now, my younger brother Bobby who is an AIL Club international came in a couple of weeks ago.
“Rob Russell played with Trinity so I think it’s a great standard. I think it’s getting better.
“I can’t remember an AIL player that’s come up into a training squad or even having to suit up and play, where you’re like, ‘Oh God, they’re way off the
level.’
Future
“I wouldn’t be surprised if a few lads get contracts on the back of it in the future.” Northampton’s Langdon has crossed that kind of divide – and has even got as far picking up two England caps.
Continues Sheehan: “Curtis has only sort of come onto my radar this year, I didn’t know anything about his pathway.
“He’s been playing some unbelievable rugby in the Premier, a really good attacking player, good ball skills, great pace, sort of heads up rugby.
“He’s definitely another person that we’re going to have to make sure we’re all over, about his sort of broken game, you saw him getting back in the backfield and running back against Munster.”
“So I think we’re in a really good place. That was a big part of us not travelling to South Africa, to make sure the energy levels were there, everyone’s excited to get going.”