OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW
Leinster star Larmour is a product of an Irish academy system that clearly works
BRILLIANT talent floats untethered, free of the doubts that keep other sportspeople in check. They emerge only rarely, but Jordan Larmour is obviously one of them. The try he scored in Limerick on St Stephen’s Day was blindingly impressive as an amalgam of speed, dexterity and confidence.
What was thrilling about it, too, though, was the instinctive nature of his play; he caught the ball and rather than seeking to protect it, at a time in a derby match when Munster were entertaining ideas of a comeback, he followed his will.
The result was a score that will hardly be bettered by an Irish rugby player this season.
That certainty in Larmour’s play is not often glimpsed. For years, it was lamented that Irish rugby didn’t produce skilful attacking players.
Nor did it manage to find worldclass scrum halves, or regularly discover second rows with the required size and technical proficiency.
That was all true once, but it is changing thanks to an Irish system that works. It is only a few weeks since Joe Schmidt was being hissed at by pantomime analysis of the decision to drop Simon Zebo from his squad.
Don’t make the mistake of studying that case in isolation, though. Talented as Zebo is, Schmidt and David Nucifora understood there was a player like Larmour within the system. He has already been around the Irish senior squad, and his talents were becoming more widely known last season owing to his efforts for the Irish Under 20s.
The departure of Zebo deprives Schmidt of an experienced option, but there are compensations. It is a measure of the standards within Irish professional rugby that the loss of an elite-level player can be absorbed.
On the form he has displayed this season, Larmour should be starting for Ireland at full back in the Six Nations. How long Rob Kearney or Isa Nacewa can keep him out of Leinster’s European teams must be open to question.
If Leo Cullen does not site the 20-year-old at full back, then a regular place on the wing looks certain. He has played 11 times so far this season, six of them starts.
Those numbers will increase, but there is already enough evidence assembled of a luminous sporting presence. He brings to mind the story of Conor Murray, the world’s best scrum half this year. Tony McGahan started to favour him for Munster in the spring of 2011, at a time when Peter Stringer was still at the province.
By the end of that season, Stringer and Tomás O’Leary were both kept out of the team by the 21-year-old. Declan Kidney took Murray to the World Cup later that year and come the conclusion of Irish involvement he was established as the starting scrum half.
Before the tournament started, Ireland visited Queenstown and Murray spoke shortly after the team arrived, and we asked him about his tournament memories.
‘I don’t remember 1995,’ he replied. ‘Where was that? South Africa? Yeah, the film [Invictus] that came out a few years ago is the only memory I have of it.’
It was a bracing reminder of his age, but it also spoke to the great freedom he enjoyed: he was not chained by grim memories of Ireland’s previous World Cup mishaps.
Young players provide, along with their necessary physical talents, a personification of enthusiasm that can have a marvellous effect.
The biographical details of Jordan Larmour on the Leinster website are still contained on the page devoted to academy players. It is a small detail but a telling one – and encouraging, too. A culture of earning opportunities has been worked into Leinster over years, but that is only possible thanks to the spread of quality within the squad. And that is attributable to savvy signings, but also to the number of successful graduates of Leinster’s development systems. Ah yes, comes the usual rejoinder, but Leinster are facilitated by an extensive, deeply established schools system. But potential doesn’t guarantee anything.
That argument is made about the GAA in Dublin, too, this gripe that the county are so deep in numbers failure is not a possibility. This ignores the cost of maintaining functioning underage systems, and the precise skills needed to turn promise into outright success. Leinster are regularly doing that, but even within their accomplished alumni Larmour is dazzling.
There will be warnings of the risk of burdening him with expectations, but class like his will not be denied.
Ask those floundering Munster tacklers.