JACK CONAN ADMITS Saturday’s win over England was as good as moment as he has experienced in the game.

Scorer of one try, creator of another, Conan is fully aware that his big chance would not have arrived had it not been for injuries to others.

“I’m realistic,” he said. “If James Ryan doesn’t pick up that knock and Tadhg [Beirne] doesn’t move into the secondrow, I don’t play and that’s probably deserved because, to be fair to Tadhg, Will [Connors] and CJ [Stander], they’ve gone incredibly well in the last few weeks and I’ve just been doing my part off the bench. If it wasn’t for the injuries, I wouldn’t have been involved.

“But when Faz tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘look we’ve taken a few, you’re going to start.’ I was over the moon.

“It’s been such a long time. I haven’t started for Ireland since the warm-up games against Wales in 2019, so it’s been a long road and there have been massive ups and downs.

“But it’s all worth it when you put in that performance for 80 minutes and you look around the room at your team-mates and everyone’s happy and knows the job they went out to do. It really doesn’t get any better than that.”

Nor does that first try, the set-piece plan that involved Conan displaying his handling skills, Keith Earls showing off his finishing skills.

“We ran that move all week. I don’t think anyone expected it to work as well as it did,” said Conan.

“Tom Curry was the tail gunner in the lineout. But we had planned for him not to be there because that’s how England had set up during the campaign. So we thought it would be a free run.

“I would come around, catch the ball and have time to square up and take either an inside or outside option.

“Obviously the picture changed but, to be fair to Earlsy, all I did was pop the ball down to him. He did all the hard work and what an incredible finish from 40-odd metres out. Fair play to him, he was absolutely on the money.”