THE MOST-PLAYED song on Stuart McCloskey’s Spotify last year was Olivia Dean’s Man I Need.

A whopper of a tune, of course, but it’s also fitting because McCloskey has become the man Ireland needed as they have turned their Six Nations around.

The 33-year-old Ulster centre was one of their better performers in the disappointing opening-night defeat to France, he shone against Italy a week later, then delivered a tour de force in midfield during Saturday’s stirring win over England.

Not only has McCloskey been making waves in Irish rugby, but he’s also becoming a cult favourite around the other nations.

He has been nicknamed le Frigo Irlandais by French fans, meaning the Irish Fridge. McCloskey is indeed a blocky powerhouse with his physicality, but if he’s a fridge, he’s one of the slick modern ones with all the mod cons.

McCloskey is a creative, multi-skilled player, but there is also a pleasing old-school element to his game, a relentlessness that makes him so popular with supporters.

And it was that spirit that provided what might prove to be the most memorable moment of all from last weekend’s win in London.

Ireland have just created a try-scoring chance with a slick strike play in which McCloskey has played a central role.

He’s still in midfield as Jack Crowley runs into space, with speed men Tommy O’Brien and Robert Baloucoune outside.

But as Crowley gets picked off by Marcus Smith, McCloskey reacts rapidly.

McCloskey nearly pushes Jamie Osborne out of the way in his eagerness to get downfield.

McCloskey picks a smart line.

He doesn’t immediately run towards Smith, instead plotting a route back into the Irish 22 that he hopes will allow him to cut the Englishman off.

It initially looks near-certain that Smith will be able to go all the way.

The English playmaker is known for his acceleration, and he appears to have a good angle for a crack at finishing in the corner.

Yet Smith slows after his initial burst into the Irish half, as McCloskey gets into full stride at surprisingly high speed.

There’s a key moment when Smith takes his first glance infield.

He can see McCloskey striding back to hunt him down.

Osborne and Ciarán Frawley are also working hard to sprint back.

England inside centre Fraser Dingwall, who was initially close to Smith as he intercepted, isn’t able to keep up with the Irish chasers.

Whether he is grimacing or smiling, McCloskey appears to sense that he is now in with a great chance of catching Smith.

Smith is running out of steam, and he gives up on the idea of continuing to race for the corner.

The sense of Smith giving up here is magnified by the fact that he doesn’t even switch the ball into his outside arm, which would allow him to throw up a fend at McCloskey.

Crucially, McCloskey doesn’t mimic Smith in slowing his stride. This often happens to defenders when the ball-carrier slows their feet, but McCloskey continues to sprint as he closes in for the kill.

Smith ducks into the contact, aiming to slip out of McCloskey’s grasp or at least stay in play, but McCloskey produces another big burst of physical effort to finish the job.

McCloskey collides with Smith forcefully, then wraps in underneath his arms and the ball to roll him out over the touchline.

McCloskey himself is too shattered to enjoy the adulation from his team-mates.

“I was absolutely cooked after it,” said McCloskey. “I was basically a body bag for the last five minutes, but thankfully the game was won.”

While McCloskey didn’t have the energy to celebrate, his head coach certainly did.

This was Andy Farrell’s biggest celebration of all on a day when he showed lots of emotion in the coaching box.

“Because he didn’t do that on Tuesday [in training], and we highlighted it,” said Farrell of why he loved this moment so much.

“He did it on Wednesday, and it just shows, doesn’t it, about your preparation. You prepare properly, and then it stands to you on a weekend.

“Those types of things matter more than scoring tries.”

While this was McCloskey’s highlight moment, he had a remarkable influence on the game at Twickenham.

Having misplaced an early pass to Crowley, the Irish inside centre quickly found his rhythm with a powerful fourth-minute carry.

McCloskey recognises that England are sitting off him here and he accelerates into space. He’s not held in the tackle by Ollie Lawrence, so he bounces back up to eke out further gains, moving backwards to do so.

And despite labelling himself a “body bag” after the trackback on Smith, it was no surprise that McCloskey was still carrying hard for Ireland in the 79th minute, as we see below.

McCloskey, who has played all 240 minutes of Ireland’s campaign so far, has been prominent as a ball-carrying weapon.

His 38 carries in three games so far leave him behind only Ben Earl [59], Aaron Wainwright [48], and Théo Attissogbe [41] for total carries in this Six Nations, according to Opta.

McCloskey’s gainline percentage of 63.2% is second only to Earl [66.1%] among the top five busiest ball-carriers in the championship. The Irish centre has beaten eight defenders along the way.

This is what most great inside centres do. While a good 12 needs to have much more to their game, a direct ball-carrying threat remains extremely important. Momentum is everything in rugby, and McCloskey is someone who is consistently giving Ireland that with his ball-carrying.

He had a role in each of the five Irish tries, with his huge linebreak through Lawrence obviously pivotal to Baloucoune’s score, which we examined here.

As we discussed in that piece, McCloskey does well to get the ball into his right arm, freeing his left to fend Lawrence, as he straightens up through the English defence off Osborne’s pass.

McCloskey also featured before Dan Sheehan’s try early in the second half, initially carrying off the back of Caelan Doris’ midfield linebreak.

We can see McCloskey wide on the left in the shot above as Doris makes his break.

But after the Irish captain is hauled down, McCloskey comes back against the grain and right into the heart of the English defence to make more big gains.

It’s a brave carry because you can get smoked on this type of line close to the breakdown but McCloskey surges through the missed tackle of opposite number Dingwall and powers towards England’s five-metre line.

The lightning-quick ball is on a platter for scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park, and he nearly scores with a sniping dart.

Henry Pollock is sin-binned for failing to release in the tackle on Gibson-Park, and Ireland decide to tap their five-metre penalty. Their routine from the tap is a smart layering up of one of their now-familiar plays.

Sheehan taps and carries directly, then Ireland have Doris and Tadhg Beirne set up to the right of the ruck.

England know that Ireland have a habit of swinging back to the other side for the next carry, what they call a ‘Leicester’ play.

And that’s what Ireland do, only they don’t use Doris to carry the ball, with the number eight instead passing out the back of Josh van der Flier running short.

Doris pulls the ball back to Gibson-Park, who has McCloskey running short and Crowley out the back.

If he got to run this over again, Gibson-Park would probably go to Crowley out the back, but his pass to McCloskey at the front door leaves the centre under immediate pressure from English scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet.

Typically of McCloskey, he makes good of the situation.

Recognising that he has won the collision with van Poortvliet and the joining Tom Curry, and despite having to turn his body to shield the ball, McCloskey keeps fighting upfield, taking a couple of backwards steps to do so.

Being 112kg and very powerful helps in these situations, but McCloskey has great physical and spatial awareness. Even in heavy traffic, he consistently identifies and recognises chances to keep moving forward, even when it looks like he has been tackled.

In this instance, he keeps Ireland on top of England and presents quick, clean ball to Gibson-Park. Sheehan scores two phases later.

Yet McCloskey is about much more than direct ball-carrying.

He is a creative offloader, with this skill bringing a new dimension to the Irish attack in this Six Nations. 

McCloskey gave a try-scoring offload for Nick Timoney against France.

McCloskey takes Prendergast’s nicely delayed pass to break the French line, fires up his left-hand fend, then calmly pops the ball one-handed to Timoney.

It was a similar story against Italy as McCloskey spun in a tackle before lifting the ball to Osborne.

McCloskey also had the spectacular American football-style pass to Baloucoune in the Italy game, in yet another illustration of his vision.

It helps that he is 6ft 4ins tall, of course, with his long frame including long arms that allow him to free up the ball. McCloskey also has large hands that mean he can grip the ball one-handed with relative ease.

But to be a good offloader requires imagination because the offload usually needs to be conceptualised before the actual offloading situation becomes reality. The offloader often has to manipulate the defenders to create the situation they’ve envisioned. 

McCloskey’s size, balance, one-handed ball control, and awareness also mean he is adept at offloading even when he’s doesn’t appear to be in a dominant position in contact.

In the example above, McCloskey gets the ball under pressure and steps back to the inside of England out-half George Ford.

He ends up with Ellis Genge and Luke Cowan-Dickie on top of him too. We can see that Cowan-Dickie is reaching for McCloskey’s right arm in a bid to prevent him from offloading.

But the ball is already gone and with three defenders tied to McCloskey, there’s space for Gibson-Park to snipe through. 

England have to scramble back and they edge offside, allowing Crowley to kick the opening three points of the game.

Some players with McCloskey’s skillset can be guilty of overdoing it with offloads. It is a delightful feeling to throw them and it can become a little addictive. But McCloskey is smart in deciding when to release the ball and when to hang onto it.

He has successfully offloaded six times in the last three games, which has him fifth in the overall offloading chart behind Thomas Ramos [9], Matthieu Jalibert [9], Leonardo Marin [8], and Antoine Dupont [7].

So while McCloskey is a very physical player, he brings a huge amount of creativity to this Irish team too.

Indeed, McCloskey is in the top five for linebreak assists in this Six Nations so far, with only Ramos [9], Jalibert [7], Ford [7], and Finn Russell [6] ahead of him. That’s the kind of playmaking company that McCloskey keeps.

As well as being a sharp offloader, McCloskey’s passing game is smooth. 

He is consistently good at timing the release of the kind of short passes that every number 12 has to make now, when his ball-carrying threat is important in condensing defences.

But McCloskey is accurate with longer passes like the one to Baloucoune before Gibson-Park’s try against England, which we looked at here, or the one below just before his trackback tackle on Smith.

This is a slick play from Ireland off a left-hand-side lineout, with McCloskey’s carrying threat again important as they get outside the English midfield with a clever Andrew Goodman play.

McCloskey’s precise pass allows outside centre Osborne to catch and play out the back of fullback Frawley, sending Crowley into space.

McCloskey has only conceded one turnover in three games, with this bridge pass against Italy getting intercepted when Ireland have a chance down the left.

Largely, though, McCloskey has been error-free.

His defensive game has been strong, with 40 tackles completed leaving him behind only Doris [48] and Beirne [41] for Ireland, according to Opta.

McCloskey has been tackling with an 89% success rate, showing good agility and the speed that surprised everyone. One of the biggest challenges for taller centres is the lateral movement required to cover multiple options, but McCloskey looks better than ever in that regard.

He has also earned three turnovers for his team, second only to Baloucoune’s four.

This effort against Italy still stands out. Marin, who the stats above underline is a major offload threat, carries into McCloskey and Ringrose, who start to choke him up.

Recognising that, Marin lifts the ball up one-handed, hoping to offload out of the contest. But McCloskey knows all about that kind of thing and instantly adjusts, grabbing the ball and ripping it clear of Marin.

This all happens with Italy 10-5 ahead in Dublin and the clock in the red at the end of the second half. It’s a huge moment in the game and in Ireland’s Six Nations campaign.

So McCloskey is bringing it big on both sides of the ball for Ireland.

At the age of 33 and with 26 caps to his name, he looks indispensable for Farrell’s team.

“For Stu to dominate at this type of level,” said Farrell in London, “it’s a joy to see.”