LONG READ Jack Conan: A Lion longer in the tooth, but bearing his claws

“Well done, Sammy!” Sam Prendergast was wrapping up his first Six Nations post-match press conference as an Ireland player when Jack Conan stuck his head through the door.

Prendergast, after starting against England, was elated to experience his first ever championship match. Conan was way up, beyond cloud nine. That opening weekend win over England was Conan’s 47^th Test cap but his first appearance in a green jersey for 11 months. Ireland’s back row is the most hotly contested unit. There were times he felt he might not represent his country again.

The 32-year-old took his seat behind a table filled with microphones and phones, letting out a satisfied sigh. There was a ‘well done, bud’ to Prendergast as he left the room. He joked with reporters about wanting to race through his media duties so he could go catch up with his parents. Once he settled in, though, Conan could have talked for hours.

“I’d carry water if it meant it would make a difference for this team. I haven’t played [for Ireland] in a long time and missed the last two campaigns, through injury and the birth of my daughter. I was just unbelievably delighted to get back out there. It is an incredible privilege to play for your country, and this group of people. It is so incredibly special. If I got one minute or 80 minutes, just to have any impact, I’m delighted.”

Conan has registered two appearances off the bench so far in the Six Nations, totalling 65 minutes. It has been enough to propel him into British and Irish Lions conversations, and with good reason. Back in 2021, Conan and Courtney Lawes were squad picks 36 and 37 for the tour to South Africa. Heading into this season – Lawes moving to Brive and Conan missing Ireland’s summer Test stint in South Africa – you would have got outrageously long odds on that duo making Andy Farrell’s squad for Australia. Those odds are already falling.

Conan is not just a Lion. He is a Test Lion. That lapses the mind, even Irish minds. He started all four Test matches for them, including the Murrayfield warm-up again Japan that nearly did for captain Alun Wyn Jones. Warren Gatland had Taulupe Faletau and Sam Simmonds at his disposal, but handed Conan the 8 jersey for all the biggies against the Boks. He was driving, and at traffic lights, when his name was called out for that Lions squad. “I was convulsing, the shaking took over my whole body,” he recalled during the tour. “It was like an out-of-body experience.”

At the end of the day when I retire, I won’t look back and say, ‘I had 20 starts and 30 off the bench’. It won’t matter to me.

Playing for the Lions was not something he even dreamed of growing up in Wicklow. Conan’s older brother, Robert, was captain of the Kilmacanogue Gaelic football team. All Conan wanted was to share the pitch with him in a club championship game. If it was not playing for his club, then lining out for Wicklow, the sporting path which looked more likely was soccer. He was a towering defender for Glencormac United and likened to the no-nonsense Mick McCarthy, who was Ireland’s ‘captain fantastic’ at Italia 90.

Early team photographs of Conan, in GAA, soccer or rugby gear, show him looming head and shoulders above friends. “I played a few games at tight-head,” he once told me. “I was probably a bit big for my age, when I was around 13. They’d lump the big lad in the front row. I was terrible.”

Conan moved to the second row then back row, where he found his home. He flourished at St Gerard’s. Their notable Leinster Senior Schools Cup run in 2010 brought him to the attention of Leinster’s development officers. He was drafted in for Leinster U19 games and experienced the sub academy, but was not offered a full academy position. Looking back years later, Conan admitted he did not deserve a spot. He was not picked by Ireland U20s either.

Rugby had replaced GAA and soccer as the dream by this stage. Conan was undeterred by the double setback. He spoke to a few clubs in Dublin, and settled on proving himself with Old Belvedere in the All-Ireland League. Mixing it with the big and hairy of that division was enough to get him called up by Ireland U20s. Leinster brought him back in for a look. He made his senior provincial debut in February 2014 and took off from there. Within 18 months he had made his Test bow.

Conan is the player often taken for granted. A workhorse. He has played in an era when Jamie Heaslip, CJ Stander and Caelan Doris have been rivals for that Ireland jersey, yet is nearing his 50^th cap and has played key roles in two Grand Slam campaigns.

Back in 2017, when Stander was being touted as the man to replace Heaslip at the back of the Irish pack, journalist Paul Kimmage took exception. The South Africa-born Stander, argued Kimmage, was ‘depriving someone who is born and raised here of playing in that position’. It was left to Conan to speak the most sense on the matter.

“Those lads come in and have been here for the right amount of time to get Irish qualified,” he told me. “They are bringing a different standard. If they are bringing it and upping that standard then everyone else has to react to that and be better. That, then, increases the talent around them and makes everyone up their level.”

As you get a bit longer in the tooth, and most of your days are behind you instead of in front of you, you realise how lucky you are.

Conan would win his second, third and fourth caps later that year, on a summer tour to Japan and the United States. His best run of starts for Ireland was during the 2022 Six Nations but, for the most part, he has been the man who delivers off the bench. This championship, England and Scotland know all about that. Everything he touched in that opener turned to gold as Ireland turned the screw. Against Scotland, he soared for restarts, nailed big tackles and scored the bonus-point try.

He would love to be in from that first whistle but Conan is chuffed to be back throwing his weight around against the very best. “Look, you always want to be starting,” he has stated. “It’s not ego, but you want to have as much of an effect as you can.

“At the end of the day when I retire, I won’t look back and say, ‘I had 20 starts and 30 off the bench’. It won’t matter to me. It’s about just wearing the jersey and having those memories, and winning things.”

Heading into the Wales game, it does feel like blindside is up for grabs. Ryan Baird and Peter O’Mahony had respective starts, against England and Scotland, while Tadhg Beirne played in the 6 jersey for three of the Autumn Nations Series games. Conan only has nine starts (out of 212 appearances) in that position, but has often covered it as a replacement. Cormac Izuchukwu, Cian Prendergast and recent Ireland call-up Thomas Ahern will all be eyeing it, too, as there seems little shifting Doris and Josh van der Flier.

There is no better Lions shop window than the Six Nations. One would love to get a proper look at the training tilts in the lead-up to the Wales game, as six class players vie for that blindside spot.

Back in Dublin, after defeating England, Conan retained the glow of a player enjoying that second (or third) wind at his back. Fully appreciating, now, what it meant to wear the Ireland jersey.

“As you get a bit longer in the tooth, and most of your days are behind you instead of in front of you, you realise how lucky you are to do what we do,” he said.

“Are you going for a beer?” one reporter enquired, as he left a phone behind to record the chat.

“No,” Conan replied. “Game next week. Teetotal.”

Heading into an off week, for most of those players involved in the Tests, one hopes Conan celebrated his Ireland return with a cold beverage of some sort.