Birthday boy Carty comes of age in time to seize his moment

GIVEN that Jack Carty will start his first Test match today, the same day he turns 27, it seems almost too clichéd to suggest that he has come of age.

Yet, when the Connacht man casts his mind back to the last big birthday he celebrated, Carty can appreciate how far he has come.

Carty had dealt with the setback of being overlooked for a place in the Connacht Academy, before he fought his way in and impressed.

It wasn’t enough to earn the kind of first-team opportunities that some of his close friends were enjoying, however.

Watching the likes of Robbie Henshaw and Kieran Marmion begin to forge their own paths, doubts ran through Carty’s head. The Athlone native had already passed up one professional dream when he didn’t attend soccer trials with Southampton and he wasn’t about to do the same with rugby.

“I remember my 21st birthday,” Carty recalls, ahead of his first Ireland start.

“Connacht were playing, I think, Cardiff at home. ‘Marms’ was starting, Robbie was starting and I was back in Athlone having my 21st.

“At the time you’re thinking, ‘When am I going to get my opportunity?’ But looking back now it’s probably something that put me in the position where I am in today.”

Carty may have taken the long route to get to this point, but his moment has now arrived and a good performance in Cardiff will surely seal his place in Ireland’s final World Cup squad. It may not be a Six Nations clash, but the stakes could not be higher for Carty, who knows this is the biggest game of his career.

“You’re probably going through the emotions that people think, like nerves and that, but I am actually just really excited to get out and play. I’d say come around game time, I will be bricking it! So, I am looking forward to getting out and steering the ship early doors and do what I have been doing throughout the year.

“Some fellas get their Test debut at

20 or 21. I had to wait until I was 26. I suppose I’m happy enough with that.”