Carolan delight as Connacht duo Marmion and Carty earn Ireland recalls

CONNACHT attack and backs coach Nigel Carolan has hailed the attitude shown by the Westerners’ half-backs Kieran Marmion and Jack Carty after the duo were recalled to Ireland’s Six Nations squad.

Both players have had to deal with disappointment over the last year, with Marmion overlooked for the World Cup, while Carty endured a frustrating tournament in Japan.

Marmion has also had to deal with a couple of injury setbacks, but having hit the ground running post-lockdown, he will be hoping to earn his first cap since Andy Farrell took over.

The Connacht scrum-half has edged ahead of John Cooney and Luke McGrath in the pecking order, and while he has Conor Murray and Jamison Gibson-Park to compete with, Carolan believes that Marmion’s new-found leadership will help his chances of impressing Farrell.

“Marmo has been amazing,” Carolan said.

“You guys only get to see his performances on the pitch and you judge him on that. On the whole, he is passing well, he is kicking well, he has got great energy defensively. He was like a demon the other day.

“He has got that bite back, but off the field, he is contributing, he is challenging, he is encouraging, he is stepping up into a real leadership role.

Presence

“Players respect him. When he speaks, players respect him because he doesn’t speak unnecessarily.

“He has developed some really strong leadership skills, which you guys won’t see, but I think he has transferred that onto the field, and his presence has improved drastically on the back of that.”

Carty, on the other hand, struggled after the World Cup where he started the defeat to Japan, while he also featured off the bench in the wins over Scotland and Russia.

However, his confidence was dented after the Japan game, which took him a while to recover from.

Now back in the Connacht team, Carty has also been restored to the Ireland squad having been left out in the cold in favour of Billy Burns back in January.

“Jack is a real confidence player,” Carolan added. “After the World Cup, he hit a dip and he just struggled. It wasn’t that Conor Fitzgerald had taken the place ahead of him, it was that Jack wasn’t the same player. He was lacking in that bit of spark that he had that got him to the World Cup.

“Just inaccuracies in his kick and pass. It’s hard to put your finger on it, but before the lockdown he started to get his confidence back, his tactical kicking and game management came back and he grew.”