LEINSTER HOOKER JAMES Tracy took a wealth of experience from his month in Ireland camp.
The Kildare man won his first Test cap off the bench in the 52 – 21 win over Canada in the second match of the four-game series, but rubbing shoulders with Rory Best on a daily basis provided a much better education of what it takes to be an international front row.
“He was really good in fairness. He sat down with me the first day and talked through all the different things.
“As much as I could I just talked to him about the way that Joe wants our hookers to play, but apart from that it’s kind of up to yourself.
“You just have to watch the players out there and try emulate them or find your own X-factor and stick with that.”
Once on the field, Tracy made sure to shut out the merits and honours won by his direct opponent when pitched in to live scrummaging sessions.
“You can’t really think like that,” Tracy said at Canterbury’s Leinster stories launch.
“You could be like: ‘he’s a Lion’ and you’d be pretty scared with everything you do.
“You just have to think about your own process and all that. It’s a great experience going up against someone of that calibre and he has such a good reputation so I definitely learned a few things.”
As a converted prop, scrummaging is a contest which Tracy naturally takes pride in, though he admits he did have to keep tabs on his competitive instincts after shifting into the middle of the front row.
“I’ve been a loosehead before and that gives you hunger. Every scrum is a one-on-one battle and you don’t really lose that (instinct).
“I’ve tried to take it into the middle of the scrum as much as I can – at the start, probably to my detriment, in that I was trying to do my own thing. You learn pretty quickly the hard way that it’s all about keeping the props in the right slot and then manipulating it whatever way you can.”
As for the other set-piece, Tracy hasn’t gone to desperate measures to emulate Best’s tendancy to practice his line-out throwing in the farmyard. But he can match the training hours even if he can’t come close to the acreage.
“I don’t have a farmyard. We have a hoop and I come in here nearly everyday. Then, there is the top of the lamp-post I throw at, at home.
“I’m missing the glass… it’s a good thing, I think.
“I aim for the top of it.”
“As with all the kickers and scrum-halves and things like that, it all comes down to practice at the end of the day. If you put in the hours and you know you put in the hours it’s going to give you a lot of confidence when you come to the game day or when you come to the pressure situation because you’ve done it a million times, I think that’s what it boils down to.”
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
