Leinster youngster to emulate Brian O'Driscoll historic feat this summer

Irish Daily Mirror

a day ago

Stephen Smyth has made just four appearances for Leinster, all of them this season as a sub, and been on the pitch for a grand total of sixty-five minutes.His next game will be for Ireland in either Georgia or Portugal in July...At which point the 20 year-old hooker will become the first player to play for Ireland without having started for his province since Brian O'Driscoll made his debut against Australia in 1999.It has been some week for Smyth, who is still a First Year Academy trainee at the Blues and who started the season as, technically, their SIXTH choice hooker and who was the very, very last to know he was selected.
Smyth was in Australia on an Academy sabbatical/leadership course with Rugby League outfit Melbourne Storm - a plane ticket/summons home came in the same email as 'congratulations you have been selected...'.As for being down the pecking order at Leinster, no shame there as both Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher were established Ireland stars and, indeed, are going on the Lions Tour this summer.Gus McCarthy was so established Andy Farrell capped him in the November 2024 Series while John McKee and Lee Barron had both made 2022 debuts for the province.But the 2024/25 newbie at Leinster had caught the eye at almost every representative level on the way up culminating in playing Six Nations, World Championships for Ireland U21 and Old Wesley in the AIL through 2023/24.While the previous parts of his resume which included such as captaining Leinster Schools, playing Ireland U18, captaining Ireland U19 in Japan were impressive too.All the more for Smyth having started his rugby as a centre, moved to no8 and has only latterly converted to hooker."Somebody of his size profile, probably was always going to end up in the pack," says Old Wesley coach Morgan Lennon with whom the hooker has prospered."He's made remarkable strides, it's not obvious to most people that he has only transitioned to hooker two years ago when he came out of school where he was a no8."Like anybody who's picking up the situation at that stage, throwing was the biggest challenge because he'd always been a good ball-carrier, good defender."From the minute I came across him, when he came out of school and made the decision to come to us he always had the raw materials, the size-profile."When you look at him he looks very like a Dan Sheehan or a Ronan Kelleher, he's got that physical profile, six foot two, six foot three, 14 kilos and he's dynamic, quick, powerful."Switching position in rugby doesn't have to be traumatic, Brian O'Driscoll was a scrum-half in school, Denis Leamy was a place-cking centre at school it is just that anyone switching to hooker has a whole new responsibility, throwing into the lineout.In BOD's case he was playing AIL for UCd when called up by Warren Gatland for the 1999 Australia tour, making his debut at 19 years, four months and 21 days and who would make his Six Nations debut in 2000, a campaign in which he would score his famous Paris hat-trick.
"It was the throwing that was always going to be the thing that was going to separate him, that was going to cause some problems and he would be the first to admit he's worked incredibly hard on that."He struggled during the first Ireland U20s campaign when he first came out of school and couldn't really get in."There was a lot of talk about him and I was kind of being told about him, the background noises that he was not going to get to be a pro, but his throwing came on incredibly between the end of the U20 Six Nations and the U20 World Cup."Then, obviously, there was a couple of injuries which meant he started a lot of the games in the 20s World Cup and he's just gone on an upward trajectory since then."That's in part as former Leinster hooker Aaron Dundon (2010-16) is Line-out Coach at Welsey."It's funny because myself and Aaron, we've talked about quite a bit around Stevie and the thing about him is that Aaron would always say that a hooker has to be throwing regularly in game situations, and he has thrown regularly with us."It didn't always go our way, there were times where we were playing AIL and it was like 'Oh my god, we're never going to win him out here'."But he has shown he has the playing capacity and the mental capacity to not let that get into his overall game and I think he also matured a huge amount in two years, he obviously growing from a boy to a man not just on the physical side but mentally too."Smyth, says Lennon, has proved himself remarkably committed to Wesley who are, don't forget an amateur side."Stevie and Billy Corrigan who is also at Leinster and still U20s have been brilliant for us, so good that at 20/21 years they are part of our leadership group."Their contribution here has been excellent whether it is making it to all our training sessions in the evenings even if they have been with Leinster or the U20s in the morning, picking up cones or chatting to the lads."So I'd imagine there will be more for Stevie to pick up while on tour with Ireland, he'll have an exposure to different coaches and while I don't know I would expect Stevie to be able to relate to Paul O'Connell, I think they'll have some common ground."Those who have seen Smyth in action this season for Leinster are hardly legion, there has just been Connacht away (7 mins, Nov), home to Lions (2 mins, Nov), home to Cardiff (23 minutes, March) and away to Bulls (33 mins, March).And while the immediate future is clear, touring and hopefully picking up an Ireland cap, it may be that, given the number of top-flight hookers queuing at Leinster there will be some David Humphreys-style thinning out.Barron was loaned to Munster for the latter part of this season with the move now full-time and this week's appointment of Stuart Lancaster to Connacht comes with the suggestion there will be a 'loan superhighway' set up between the western and eastern clubs.Sheehan and Kelleher won't be going anywhere but if the question is whether Lancaster will be able to capture one of McCarthy, McKee or Smyth - either full-time or on loan - the answer is almost certainly 'yes'.