If you’re going to a gunfight – you need to have more than one weapon

Jack McGrath says his scrum tandem with Cian Healy can put England down

YOU’D think Jack McGrath would be sick of the sight of Cian Healy. He has started 14 of the last 21 Test games wearing the No 1 jersey but still hasn’t cemented his position as the first choice Ireland loosehead ahead of his often-injured rival.

He began last season’s Six Nations in pole position, starting in four rounds only to be returned to the bench as Healy came in the day the trophy was handed out in Scotland.

Same at the World Cup: he led the pack in two of the opening three games only to slip to the bench to accommodate Healy when it mattered most against France and Argentina.

Now the pattern is poised for repeat. Despite starting the games against Wales and France, McGrath arrived in Mullingar this week to find the fitagain Healy on the prowl once more and hoping to take the jersey off his fellow Dubliner yet again in time for next Saturday’s trip to England.

If that wasn’t enough, he got a sharp reminder of the established pecking order earlier in the week when settling for the provincial contract extension announced by Leinster on Tuesday. The following day, Healy landed a far more lucrative IRFU central contract extension despite playing far less rugby than McGrath in recent years.

You could be forgiven for wondering whether McGrath was resentful of Healy’s presence, but nothing could be further from the truth.

‘We both want to be the best two looseheads in the world and he already is, so I want to try and get as good as him,’ explained McGrath (26), the younger of the pair by two years and four days. ‘Having the two of us on the same team is good. What both of us want is the best for the team. Neither of us are me feiners – we do everything for the team, everything for our team-mates, so to have two of us on the team, I play 50 [minutes] and he plays 30 or vice versa, it doesn’t really matter. The level comes up when either one of us comes on or starts.

‘That’s the quality you want in your province or in your country. The two of us have been working in tandem over the last three or four years now and it has been really good. We’re building a bond. We’re good buddies. It’s a good place to be. It’s great to see him sign on. Leinster’s an exciting place to be for the next three years and so is Ireland.’

Saturday’s outing at Twickenham is the championship’s stand-out fixture for McGrath, who hopes to hold off Healy and get the nod to start against mean old Dan Cole. ‘It’s the biggest game of the year so far for us… everyone in Ireland would give their left arm to be there or play there, so I find it’s a really emotional day. It’s a great place to play and it’s that bit more special because they are your real rivals.

‘They are a strong pack and they are going to try bully us… it’s going to be a special day. I’m really looking forward to it. I wish we could be playing it this weekend, but we have another week of good prep to come.

‘It’s really exciting because we’re not that far away (from winning again) and we know it… the way England play is going to suit how we play and it will be a dinger of a match.’

Which is unlike last weekend in Paris, an agonising, low frills slug-fest decided by a series of punishing scrums under the Ireland posts which laid the foundation for France’s matchwinning 70th minute converted try.

So far in the campaign, set-piece on the opposition put-in has been a nightmare. Two tries, eight penalties and a free have been conceded in 19 scrums awarded to the French and Welsh. It has been the central contributor to Ireland’s worst opening to the Championship since 1998.

While McGrath admits hopes of retaining the title are now ‘out of our hands’, restoring set-piece pride is a must if this month’s scars are to properly heal.

‘We didn’t deal with what France were trying to do,’ he shrugged, reflecting on Ireland’s competitive first-half scrum getting flummoxed by the opposition altering both props for the second period and getting away with dubious scrummaging technique.

‘You can never blame the referee – you have to take him out of the equation… you can talk to him but it [a decision] happens so quick, sometimes it’s like talking to the wall.

‘Maybe some things they were doing was not on the right side of the law but we need to be a bit more streetwise in that area. It was a learning curve. We’ll know what to do in those situations again.

‘You need to be able to come into a gunfight with more than one weapon, need to be able to deal with different scenarios and different players and how they scrummage.

‘They are such small margins. If you get the smallest thing wrong, you’re going to struggle so we need to get our little details right and be a bit more clinical. It’s something we’re trying to really push, definitely something we’re concentrating on,’ he admitted after training in Mullingar, the club he knew Joe Schmidt coached at in the 1990s but hadn’t realised the New Zealander had also played for.

He continued: ‘It’s frustrating when you know you can do it and you have done it in the past and it’s just not going for you. It can be hard to take. We’re not far away, and everyone can see that. We drew the first game and lost by a point in the second, so we’re not a million miles away. It’s not about reinventing the wheel – just tweaking things.

‘We’re really looking forward to going to Twickenham and having a go, just letting a bit of the frustration out over the last two games. We’ve started well. It’s just we need to keep it going for the 80 minutes.’