THERE WILL BE plenty of column inches and podcast minutes focusing on Leinster’s out-half battle this season, but Leo Cullen joked last night that he will have a few headaches with his scrum-half depth chart too.
Maybe not for the number nine shirt, which Jamison Gibson-Park has nailed down as long as he avoids injury or a remarkable loss of his longstanding form.
But the competition to back up Gibson-Park is interesting. 31-year-old Luke McGrath has been second-in-line in recent seasons. 24-year-old Cormac Foley will hope to move up the pecking order, while 21-year-old Fintan Gunne is a promising player.
It was McGrath who started last night’s bonus-point win over the Dragons in Dublin, his 214th appearance for the province. Only all-time record holder Cian Healy has more among the current Leinster senior squad. McGrath is eighth on the all-time list, with Leo Cullen and Rob Kearney just five caps ahead of him.
McGrath was Leinster’s starter before Gibson-Park moved to another level. McGrath was at number nine for the province’s most recent Champions Cup success in 2018 and remained the starter in Europe for the following two seasons. McGrath is also a 19-cap Ireland international, with his most recent Test coming at the 2019 World Cup.
In short, McGrath is a highly experienced senior member of the Leinster squad.
Last night, it was Gunne who came off the bench in place of McGrath with 17 minutes left and he played a part as Leinster finished strongly to claim a six-try victory.
Gunne shipped a heavy hit soon after coming on when he ran a sharp support line but bounced straight back up and continued to move at high pace for the remainder of his cameo. His speed of foot and speed of pass are strengths. He tried lots in a short space of time on the pitch and while not all of it came off, Gunne showed up well.
This was Gunne’s fourth senior appearance for Leinster and he has yet to start a game as he continues to learn in Year 2 of the academy. Last weekend, he scored two excellent tries in an impressive performance for Terenure in the All-Ireland League but Gunne – an Ireland U20 Grand Slam winner in 2023 – will be hoping for lots more chances in the Leinster team.
Foley, meanwhile, flies out to South Africa with Emerging Ireland today as the Irish coaching staff get a closer look at his ability.
The tallest of Leinster’s scrum-halves at 5ft 11ins, Foley played some of his underage rugby as a centre and that’s still apparent in his game now. He has made 20 senior appearances for the province so far but hasn’t played in the Champions Cup yet, so this is a big season for him.
“They’re all working away, to be fair,” said Cullen after last night’s 34-6 win against the Dragons.
“Jamison was good last week [against Edinburgh] for his first game back. If you think of the first pre-season game we played, Cormac played and Fintan came off the bench and he did well.
“Fintan went back and played with Terenure at the weekend, Cormac is going with Emerging Ireland so we’re lucky that they’re all in a battle at the moment and they all have different strengths.
“Lukey is an unbelievable defender for the team, great leadership.
“Fintan is obviously younger, he is good at sniping and a strong runner too. They all have their strengths, which is great.
“We’ll see what we do next week [against Benetton] and Cormac will go with Emerging Ireland, so hopefully he’ll get some good game time out there.”
Cullen’s review of McGrath’s strengths was succinct but pointed to two key attributes. Defensively, he is one of the best around with his power in the tackle. Defence might not be what most people see as the key for a scrum-half, but it’s a point of difference for McGrath.
He is also an experienced leader, something that isn’t quite visible to those outside a squad but highly valued within it.
McGrath isn’t as consistent a passer and kicker as some scrum-halves but he’s at that tricky point in any senior player’s career when they’ve been around so long that some people have completely stopped seeing the good things they do and started to magnify the bad things out of proportion. The average things can also become bad things.
It looks like Gunne could end up as the best passer of the crop but we haven’t seen enough of him in senior professional rugby to really know how the obviously slick technique holds up under the most intense pressure. Leinster rate him and that means we will find out more soon enough. He is clearly a player of rich, exciting promise.
Foley, who turns 25 next month, will hope this experience with Emerging Ireland has a positive knock-on effect on his Leinster career before he presumably comes back into the mix for the visit to Connacht on 19 October. The next few weeks might be when things truly take off for Foley.
With Leinster surely going full strength for their clash with Munster on 12 October in Croke Park, the expectation will be that Gibson-Park starts and McGrath continues as the back-up option but Gunne will hope his big break is coming soon.
