Tadhg Furlong On His Amazing Journey To Lions Starter & The Person Who Got Him There

What a season for Tadhg Furlong.

The Wexford native broke in the Leinster team at the beginning of the season, before finding himself in the Ireland squad for the November series. He impressed hugely in that series, especially in both games against the All Blacks.

Fast forward a few months and he’s a key part of Ireland’s starting line-up in the Sis Nations, and fast forward only a few more short months and now he finds himself set to start for the Lions in the first Test on Saturday.

The tighthead credits Stuart Lancaster as the man that has helped drive him to to such incredible heights, in such a short space of time.

“It’s weird the journey you take when you get your first international start and you get exposed to that big world, and all its pressures,” Furlong told RTE Sport.

“As you get used to it and spend more time in that high-pressure environment, you can probably let your game play a bit more. I came out of the November Tests with a lot of confidence.

“When you start to put minutes on minutes it can give you that bit of confidence that you can start pushing towards or aiming for something. But I think the real moment, the focus for me this year, was when Stuart Lancaster came in to Leinster.

“He obviously hadn’t worked with a lot of the players there before. And when we sat down he said ‘from what I’ve seen you can really try to push on and aim to be a Lion this year’.

“At first I thought ‘jeez man, what are you saying?!’.

“You probably don’t see yourself in that picture. But he backed me, gave me a focus and a good drive towards it.”