‘Jack’s Very Consistent, He’s A Good Operator’ – Fogarty On Aungier’s First Ireland Call-Up

Furlong’s injury-enforced absences so far this season have seen Finlay Bealham command the number 3 jersey, enjoying five consecutive starts to beat his previous best run of three during the 2023 Grand Slam-winning campaign.

Tom O’Toole and debutant Thomas Clarkson were the back-up tightheads during the Autumn Nations Series, and the latter made his first Six Nations appearance off the bench against England. O’Toole is currently in the last week of his six-match suspension.

With Furlong coming into the Six Nations with a calf injury, Connacht prop Jack Aungier received his first Ireland senior call-up, joining the squad at their pre-tournament training camp in Portugal.

The 26-year-old Dubliner worked closely with the national coaches during October’s Emerging Ireland tour, making two eye-catching starts in Bloemfontein. His equally impressive form with Connacht means he is closer to a first international cap than ever before.

Asked about Aungier’s progress to get to this point, Fogarty said: “Jack has been consistent in his entry, so what we does from (scrum) set-up into his entry piece has been really, really good.

“I think he’s played around with that, and then there was a season or two where he was sort of figuring things out. He’s not figuring things out anymore.

“He’s now in a place where he is really clear and really consistent in what he delivers, and that’s why he is here (in camp). He’s a good rugby player.

“We had him over in the Emerging Ireland tour and he impressed us in the games. He’s a bit of a scrum ‘nause’ which is always good when you’re a prop! He’s done really, really well.

Jack’s competing with Finlay down there (at Connacht) for game-time, and he gets plenty of game-time which says a lot about him as well. He’s got a fair bit of belief in himself.

“He just needs to make the step, and that’s the final piece I see for him. He needs to make the step now that he’s an international player and that he belongs here.

“That’s important that he makes that step forward because he’s got all the bits. He’s a 125-127kg tighthead who is very consistent in what he does. He’s a good operator.”

This season is a big one in terms of developing and strengthening Ireland’s front row depth both in the short and long term. Seamus Toomey’s recent appointment as performance pathway scrum coach, working in tandem with national scrum coach Fogarty, will certainly aid that.

The IRFU’s current calendar has more international playing windows than in recent years with that Emerging Ireland series, and this month’s Ireland ‘A’ clash with their English counterparts, leading to Tests against Georgia and Portugal during the British & Irish Lions tour.

While full details of Ireland’s summer tour are still to be confirmed, IRFU Performance Director David Humphreys said: “The tour is another opportunity for some of our younger players on the basis that we will have a significant number of players away in Australia (with the Lions).

“It will give some of that younger group who have had opportunities with Emerging Ireland, opportunities against England ‘A’, the chance to get more experience at international level and work with the coaches.”

It is no secret that blooding new props and hookers has been a focus for Andy Farrell and his fellow coaches. Indeed, half of the eight most recent new caps in the last 18 months have been front rowers – Tom Stewart, Oli Jager, Clarkson, and Gus McCarthy.

Ireland were blessed to have scrum cornerstones, John Hayes and Mike Ross, play professionally until they were 38 and 37 respectively, and the evergreen Cian Healy, who turned 37 in October, is now the nation’s most-capped player of all-time and in the midst of an incredible 16th straight Six Nations campaign.

The likes of Furlong, Bealham, and lynchpin loosehead Andrew Porter still hopefully have some of their best years in the green jersey yet to come, but having well-structured succession plans in place are crucial in order to keep delivering results for Irish teams across the next number of seasons.

With that in mind, Humphreys has said there will be ‘flexibility’ regarding provincial transfers which will be looked at on a case-by-case basis, having initially announced last July that the IRFU would block the signing of non-Irish qualified front row players for the time being.

The move was designed to prioritise the development of homegrown front row forwards in the provinces, especially with the national side needing players ‘playing regularly who are going to be able to step up and perform at international level’.

However, the recent impact of South African prop Dian Bleuler during his loan spell at Munster, and France international Rabah Slimani’s influence on Leinster’s young contingent of props, shows the value of having such players on these shores.

Jack Boyle, the only uncapped member of Ireland’s initial squad for the 2025 Six Nations, is enjoying putting it up to Leinster’s international props in the battle for places, but also learning as much as he can from packing down against the likes of Furlong and Slimani, whom he deems two of the ‘best in the business’.

The 22-year-old loosehead insisted: “You have to always back yourself. I feel like if I’m playing well then I deserve to play, but at the same time if they’re bringing in the likes of Rabah Slimani, you need to try and get as much information out of him as possible.

“I know he’s at tighthead now, but you don’t look at it in the way of, ‘he’s blocking whoever’. You have to learn off him. He’s there to help you as well. It’s not just to block you.”

Humphreys acknowledged: “You’ll have seen the fact from a development point of view, certainly with the number of players who are playing in the national squad, the number of nationally-contracted players, they (the NIQ players) have not been in any way a brake on player development, or young player development.

There has to be a flexibility. It (the proposed ban on NIQ front row signings) started a conversation, we all recognised that front row succession was something that Andy Farrell was very concerned about.

“Even in the course of the last six months, with someone like Thomas Clarkson coming through, some of the real concerns have eased. But we’re still very conscious that developing front row forwards is a huge priority for us.

“It’s why Seamus Toomey has been appointed as the scrum development coach to do a lot of that work further down at 16-18 level and underage teams from a technical point of view.

“The nature of high performance, yes of course you’re going to set some restrictions and guidelines to give people some parameters in which to work.

“But as we showed in November, when there’s pressure in a particular province, then Dian Bleuler was allowed to be signed because from a performance point of view, we had to be flexible and adaptable. That’s very much how I see it.”