LAST SEPTEMBER BEN Carson punctured his spleen. Suddenly all the hopes and dreams a young man possesses were taken away and replaced with one simple thought: the question of whether he’d ever be able to play again.
“It was a tough time,” he says before detailing precisely how and why. Bed ridden for a couple of weeks, he had to wait three months before he was able to run again or lift weights.
That was the easy part. The hard bit was the purgatory. Would the medics give him the green light to resume his career? Or was it over before it had really begun?
“I just didn’t know,” Carson says. One thing he was aware of, though, was an inner drive. “I didn’t give up.”
That was never an option. Playing for Ireland, that was desirable. Playing at all, that was where the boundary of his ambition was placed.
Good news came in October. Yes, he could return. Better news came in February. Someone else’s injury misfortune – Ben Brownlee’s – had opened a door. The kid whose career was nearly over was now about to take off. He landed a place in the grand slam chasing Ireland U20s side and last week had a fine game against England. This weekend it’s Scotland. Win that and the kid who feared his rugby days were numbered will be completing the emotional leap from career low to career high in the space of six months.
“Thankfully I’m here,” he says “because at the time, I was distraught. Like, everyone plays the game because they love it and to be told you might not be able to play the game you love again was pretty heart-wrenching for a while but I didn’t really think about it too much after that. I sort of had a mindset of coming back better than ever.
“So yeah, I’m very grateful to be back.”
You can see why. The way outsiders look at Irish rugby is way different to the way we look at ourselves. We tend to be critical of the many flaws our teams possess but outside these borders, there is a kind of grudging respect for the structures that have been put in place, the system that maintains Ireland’s presence as a competitive nation.
The Under 20s are always a useful gauge. If it is going well at that level, well, then there is a good chance it’ll transfer into the senior set-up. Sure enough, that’s been happening over the last six years with Ireland, James Ryan, Andrew Porter, Ronan Kelleher, Ryan Baird, Caelan Doris, Craig Casey, Nathan Doak, Jacob Stockdale, Hugo Keenan all emerging in that timeframe.
“Ever since you come into the School’s set-up, standards are drilled into you,” says Carson. “Little demands, like being able to pass off both hands, kick off both feet, especially as backs but even as forwards, those things are asked of you. They want you to be a passing threat as well as a carry threat.
“You then enter the age grade with your province and you’re told, ‘we want you to play’. This is a tough game but it is made a lot more enjoyable when (the general strategy) encourages you to express yourself. You only have to look back at the fantastic tries that we have scored in this tournament. Being creative is drilled into us from a young age and it makes it easy for us to perform on the big stage.”
Another positive factor is the culture of winning that exists. It isn’t that long ago that a losing cycle was firmly in place. Any child of the ‘90s had defeats ingrained into the psyche. That changed with Brian O’Driscoll. Right now the bad old days appear to be gone completely.
“We go into every game believing we are going to win,” Carson says. “If you think any other way, you are doing something wrong. There’s a winning culture in Irish rugby and we want to continue that legacy.”
They’re going about it the right way. Their results in this championship have been extraordinarily good, not just the comprehensive home wins over Wales and Italy but also the come-from-behind victories in France and England. “Any win over England is a good one,” says Carson.
But last week’s victory was more than good. They trailed 10-0 early on and then found a way into a match that seemed beyond them. That takes mental fortitude as well as skill.
That’s what’s so encouraging about what is happening with these young Irish sides year on year. They aren’t winning courtesy of a safety-first philosophy. They’re attacking sides from deep, trusting in their technique and their gung-ho tactics.
Come Sunday the end result could be a grand slam. For sure, Carson will welcome that but given what happened in the second minute of Ulster A’s game against Connacht last September, he knows something special has already been won this year.
