Tadhg Furlong Reflects On His Meteoric Rise Over The Last Month

As honest and down to earth as you like.

Tadhg Furlong’s meteoric rise over the last month has been nothing short of amazing. The Leinster tighthead exploded onto the international scene against the All Blacks in Chicago and followed that performance up with two more brilliant games against the All Blacks again and the Wallabies in Dublin.

His form hasn’t gone unnoticed with the front-row being heralded as Ireland’s long-term solution at tighthead, and now many pundits first choice for the Lions tour of New Zealand next summer.

Looking back on the last few weeks, Furlong was as usual, honest and down to earth, stating that’s first and foremost he’s happy to be injury free and happy to keep building his career.

It was pretty satisfying looking back,” Furlong told The42.

“Chicago really sticks out in the mind, it was disappointing to lose the second game against New Zealand, no one likes to be second best but I thought we came out against Australia in difficult circumstances and hung in there and ground out a really good result.

“I got a bit more game time in the number three jersey and managed to put three starts together and got some minutes under my belt. Happy with that, happy to be injury free and happy to keep building.”

The tighthead stressed that his game is far from perfect and it’s important that he keep’s ‘trucking’ on and get as many games as he possibly can under his belt over the next few months as he looks ahead to what will be a hugely important season for club and country.

When the games come thick and fast, you can’t really stand still and wait or look back,” he continued.

“You have to be always looking forward. The games are coming thick and fast and they’re all high-quality. They’re really important to perform in.

“You have to keep trucking. Because I’m young and still finding my feet a little bit you can never be happy in your skin because there’s a hell of a lot more gears left. You’re always looking for the perfect performance and it can a hard search at times and you tweak one part of your game or focus on one part and then it goes down hill for you.

“So I’m just trying to find my feet, find a balance and keep trucking and looking for a really good performance because it’s tempting to focus on what has happened.

“At the end of the season you can look back on the good things you did but during the season it’s really important to keep building.”

A truly special talent from what we’ve seen so far. The future is bright for the young prop.