DESPITE BEING PUT into a dangerous position by Stade Français lock Baptiste Pesenti at Thomond Park last weekend, Munster scrum-half Craig Casey could see the funny side.

Given the WWE-style nature of Pesenti’s red-card tackle, it was a remarkable coincidence that Casey had a mock WWE belt lying around. After the game, he posted a photo with the belt on social media and is happy to recount why he had it to hand.

Basically, Casey wrestled Finlay Bealham for it in Ireland camp. Their bout was part of the fun and games organised by Ireland’s social committee.

“I was a mixture of Shawn Michaels and Rey Mysterio and he was Kane,” explains Casey.

“He has this alter ego that he’s actually Kane.

“We did proper WWE moves, it was rehearsed and stuff. It was very good.”

The tackle by Pesenti last weekend certainly wasn’t part of Casey’s plan for his return to the Munster jersey after an impressive autumn with Ireland.

He doesn’t hold any grudge against the Frenchman but admits it was a strange, scary moment being turned upside down.

“I was trying to get my hand to the ground but I couldn’t reach, so that’s how tall your man was,” says Casey.

“I was still about two feet off. I was like, ‘What the f**k! How tall is he?’ And thankfully I got to the side. It was grand, it was grand.

“That’s part of it, like, part of being the smallest player on the pitch. I’m used to it now.”

Nick Elliott / INPHO Nick Elliott / INPHO / INPHO

Casey has been in the wars a fair bit, although his head injury against South Africa last summer was no laughing matter.

He was knocked unconscious in a tackle by former Munster team-mate RG Snyman, who was offside, forcing Casey off after an impressive performance. He missed the second Test victory over the Springboks as a result.

Casey says there’s no bad blood between him and Snyman, who he got on well with in Munster.

“It’s part and parcel of rugby, there were no grudges held, to be honest.

“It’s way worse that he’s gone up to Leinster!”

Snyman came into Ireland’s changing room after the game to speak to Casey, but the scum-half remembers none of it. He has a total blank up until around an hour and a half after the game.

Casey accepts that concussion is just “part and parcel of rugby” and says he was once knocked out in a Schools Senior Cup game for Ardscoil Rís.

But he knows it was much tougher for his loved ones on account of his grandfather, Pat Lawler, having passed away due to a rugby injury.

“For my family, I think it’s very difficult because my grandfather actually died on the rugby field. He was playing a charity game when he was 40, [he died] with a head knock.

“It’s very tough for my grandmother and my mother to watch on and see that, especially when you see how far away from home we were in South Africa.

“When your mother is watching that from halfway across the globe and you’re on oxygen and stuff like that after what has happened in her family, I’d say that’s fairly harrowing. But I was grand.”

Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO

Casey was obviously disappointed to miss the second Test in South Africa but has picked up where he left off this season, delivering fine form for province and country.

He was happy to be at the heart of a good Munster performance against the indisciplined Stade side, a bonus-point win in Limerick teeing up the southern province for a crack at Castres in Stade Pierre Fabre tonight [KO 8pm Irish time, Premier Sports].

Casey carried strong form back to Munster, having shone for Ireland in a start against Fiji and a replacement appearance versus Australia last month.

There was disappointment in not being involved in the opening Test against New Zealand and then just seven minutes off the bench against Argentina, but Casey was one of the big winners of the window by the end.

“I definitely feel like I’ve come on leaps and bounds and I’m probably showing that on the biggest stages consistently rather than in fits and bursts,” says Casey.

“It’s probably better as well when you’re starting games, you get to show your hand a bit more and I think from the start of the season I’ve been playing well with Munster and it’s led onto the international.

“I was disappointed to miss out on that All Blacks game because when you come home from South Africa and have a few weeks off, you’re thinking about where you can get better and where you can earmark yourself in for this season. That was definitely a game I had put down that I wanted to play in and make a real impact in, especially after not playing the World Cup quarter-final, it was somewhere I definitely targeted.

“I was gutted to miss out on that but I had a good chat with Faz [Andy Farrell] and I felt I came on leaps and bounds in training, and showed my hand in training.

“I got my chance in the Fiji game and that went well, then myself and the bench came on against Australia and it went well.”

Jamison Gibson-Park is still Ireland’s first-choice at scrum-half and Casey continues to learn from the Leinster man, but the Munster halfback’s mindset has changed in recent times.

He no longer has any sense of being the apprentice. He wants to step up and start more games for Ireland.

Nick Elliott / INPHO Nick Elliott / INPHO / INPHO

“Going down to South Africa without him [Gibson-Park was injured] probably helped me take the mantle and stuff like that,” says Casey.

“It’s the position I need to get to now, that I just take my game forward and stop concentrating on others.

“There was probably that flip of the switch, it’s now my time to kick on and there’s only so much learning you can do, you actually need to do it.”

Casey does still study other scrum-halves like Antoine Dupont, although he points out that it’s difficult to mimic some of the Frenchman’s game “when he’s such a freak. He just does things that are abnormal.”

The Munster man is happy with where his game is going, though, particularly how he is picking out space.

“I feel like I have made lots of strides in areas I probably needed to.

“My scanning is probably the piece where I have seen the most growth – seeing shortsides, seeing the backfield, and I’ve been backing myself to take them.

Casey looks more confident in his decision-making than ever, giving off a calm air, but he has always felt that way despite the speed he likes to play the game at.

“I would say I have always felt calm in the stuff I was doing. I’d say it looked a bit more frantic to everyone else, but I will say that I always felt in control in my decision-making.

“But it has come on, the game-management piece and seeing the kick space earlier has helped me make decisions where you don’t even need to slow the game down to kick it, and then when you do need to slow down, you’re able to.”

Casey senses that Munster have been gathering momentum since playing the All Blacks XV in November, with victories against the Lions and Stade Français following ahead of tonight’s clash in Castres.

Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO

He praises the work that went on in Munster while he and others were away in Ireland camp, the province reacting well to the departure of Graham Rowntree.

Casey has been part of Munster’s leadership group for nearly five years now, having been added to it by Johann van Graan when he was still only 20, so he plays a key role in assessing and driving the mood of the squad.

Munster were frustrated with their final 20 minutes against 13-man Stade when they fell into the trap of forcing things and trying to score before it was really on. 

They have also made some tweaks to their attack in the ‘score zone’ five metres out from the tryline, so that’s one to watch out for tonight.

Casey is excited to keep his vein of form going. He’ll ask himself a simple question before kick-off in Castres.

What would 10-year-old Craig Casey want to do?

“He’d want to play his own game and rip in.”