A POTENTIAL MATCH-UP between No 10s Jack Crowley and Harry Byrne when Munster and Leinster meet this weekend was up for discussion on Rugby Weekly Extra, a podcast for subscribers to The 42.
Eoin Toolan, former Ireland and Melbourne Rebels analyst, said he has been impressed by Crowley’s recent performances at out-half for Munster and that the versatile player “show great poise”.
“It feels as if he has time on the ball,” Toolan said, adding this was a feature with “a lot of great sports people”.
Murray Kinsella, rugby journalist with The 42 said a potential face-off between the pair in Saturday’s URC semi-final would be “just great to watch because of the wider context”.
“Harry Byrne is only a year older, so it’s not like he’s completely washed up. He’s kind of disappeared from the Ireland chat but for I guess it’s a really nice opportunity both to lead Leinster but to also serve that reminder to Andy Farrell as well,” Kinsella said.
Toolan said: “Yeah, I don’t know if you saw the Brumbies-Rebels game down here at the weekend. It just reminded me of that little head-to-head at the moment. Noah Lolesio has kind of been unceremoniously dropped out of the Wallabies squad by Eddie Jones in favour of the young gun at the Rebels called Carter Gordon.
“Anyay, Lolesio goes in for a try and goes straight in front of the camera and goes, ‘Carter Gordon, who?’ And it added a little bit of spice down this neck of the woods.
“So it would be fascinating to see something similar at the Aviva on Saturday, maybe with a Harry Byrne try and a little bit of afters, which is is great isn’t it around the narrative of the game and yeah, likewise, I thought I thought Harry Byrne was pretty good for Leinster (against the Sharks).
“I really liked his identification of the kick space, while it was a pretty industrious kick pass probably not into the ilk of his brother Ross Byrne, who was imperious with with the kick pass technique, but he identified the space and found a way to get it to Larmour for the third of Leinster’s tries.
“So that’s what I like about his game as well. And things change really quickly don’t they? Form is is temporary, but class it is permanent.
“You could see what the coaches have liked about Harry Byrne, what Andy Farrell has seen in him particularly, I would say a little bit like Gibson Park as well the fall obviously liked the profile of a Gibson Park and he’s probably seen similar attributes in terms of Harry Byrne in terms of how you can break shape, be a threat at the line, a little bit of unpredictability in this game, and you started to see him getting a kind of rhythm of games, which he probably wouldn’t have got if Sexton hadn’t got injured.
“So it’s a spicy match-up. You would hope they keep Crowley at 10. But there could be a need to push him to 12 and Healy to 10 given the injuries that they’re currently experiencing.”
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