JACK CONAN HAS just come in from a whistle-stop tour of all four corners of the Aviva Stadium, which is hosting the annual National Mini Rugby Festival.
It’s less than 12 hours after Leinster’s Pro14 semi-final win over Munster, in which the number eight starred, and he’s tasked with meeting and greeting 400 children who have been given the chance to play on the hallowed turf.
“I’ve signed a lot of autographs but most of the kids have no idea who I am,” he laughs.
That may soon change the way things are going, however. Conan’s consistently excellent form has furthered his case for a World Cup ticket and the 26-year-old is now pushing CJ Stander for that number eight jersey harder than ever.
Conan, having benefitted from an injury-free run, has built up a considerable head of steam over the last 18 months and his performances in blue this season have provided evidence of the improvements across all facets of his game.
While Stander has been a consistent performer for Ireland, and certainly never let Schmidt down, Conan has shown he can offer something different from the base of the scrum.
With an excellent skill-set and work-rate, the 14-time capped international has developed into a potent ball-carrying threat and has worked on his lineout work this season to add another string to his bow.
“Yeah, happy enough, injury free which is the main thing,” he says. “I’ve played a few games the last while, I feel fit, the body is good, happy with the performances I’ve put in for Leinster. Hopefully, keep doing what I’m doing and see what happens in the next few weeks.”
While the focus is on this weekend’s Pro14 final against Glasgow Warriors, the World Cup is creeping ever closer and once the final whistle goes at Celtic Park on Saturday, all eyes will turn to preparations for Japan.
Conan, in helping Leinster to another Champions Cup final, has done his chances no harm having also featured in three of Ireland’s Six Nations games earlier this year, including a start against Scotland at Murrayfield.
But the former St Gerard’s man insists he is not thinking about the World Cup, and that ability to retain a narrow focus on the next job has helped him stay in the moment and put his best foot forward for Leo Cullen’s side each week.
“No, I don’t listen to the outside noise,” he continues. “I’m sure if I had one bad day, it would be ‘No, don’t bring him to the World Cup.’ So you can’t really listen to that, people are entitled to their opinions but it’s not anything to do with me really.
“I’m just focusing on my own job and trying to be as consistent as possible, doing the best I can, day in, day out. The World Cup feels like a million miles away at this stage with something still on the line with Leinster.
“I’ll think about that more after Saturday but, yeah, at the moment it’s a mentality of don’t believe the hype, don’t believe the noise.”
Conan prefers to let his performances do the talking.
“I suppose every time you go out to play it’s about going out and showing what you’re about,” he explains.
“I think I’ve done that well over the last few weeks, I’m constantly improving on both sides of the ball and when you’ve got such quality and talent around you like we do in Leinster it is easy to be at your best.
“I’m happy enough with my performance but there are areas I want to improve. I reckon I can be better. I’ll be better. I mean, I think at times I’ve done some good things and at times I’ve done some not so good things.”
Conan, as is his character, was typically honest in his assessment after Leinster’s defeat to Saracens in Newcastle, admitting Cullen’s side ‘did not play Leinster rugby’ and even now the frustration and disappointment is clear in his voice. They were much better against Munster, but that St James’ Park final is one that got away.
“I think we looked back after the game and we looked at the opportunities we left out there and didn’t take,” he adds. ”And even the style of play we had spoken about all week leading up to the final was, to get to the width, make them work hard around the corner and then have two-sided tackles, and we just didn’t do it.
“It was partly because of the linespeed that they brought, they put us under serious pressure so whatever about physicality in D, when we were in attack, we didn’t do what we said we were doing and that was probably the most disappointing thing about the day.
Something we had practised so hard on all week, and all year as it’s the style of play, we never got into our flow, into our attacking flow. We didn’t get to the edge and we were just running into big bodies time and time again. They’re massively physical lads so it’s tough.
“You might eke out a few yards but we were never going to win that man-to-man physical battle. We didn’t get the tactics wrong. We got the execution wrong. Hindsight is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”
Leinster will have learned their lessons heading to Glasgow this weekend as they bid to finish the season on a high by securing back-to-back Pro14 titles at Celtic Park, with Conan to thrive in another big-game atmosphere.
“I am well aware of what the atmosphere can be like and please God, it lends itself to the game on Saturday, a raucous affair.
“There is no way they will want us to go over there and beat them. They may have never played there [Celtic Park] but there is no way they will want us coming into their city and winning, you know, like if we were playing anywhere in Dublin, say not in the RDS, that we would want anyone to beat us. There will that extra motivation for them
“Hopefully, we can push on on Saturday and finish the season on a high which would be great obviously given the disappointment of Newcastle.”
Jack Conan was speaking at the Aviva National Mini Rugby Festival in Aviva Stadium. 400 children from 20 clubs around Ireland got the dream opportunity to play on the same pitch as their Irish rugby heroes. To find out more, follow Aviva Ireland social media channels and use #SafeToDream.
Gavan Casey is joined by Ryan Bailey and Andy Dunne to look ahead to Saturday’s Pro14 final, look at whether Joey Carbery’s move has paid off and Jack Conan talks about how his body is holding up.:
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