{"id":124610,"date":"2025-11-06T08:07:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T08:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/124610\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T08:07:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T08:07:16","slug":"craig-casey-admits-hes-still-haunted-by-chicago-cameo-as-ireland-star-vows-to-be-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/124610\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Casey admits he\u2019s \u201cstill haunted\u201d by Chicago cameo as Ireland star vows to be No.1"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Munster scrum-half says his brief appearance against New Zealand \u201chas been eating at me\u201d \u2014 but insists brutal honesty is driving him towards his goal of being Ireland\u2019s first-choice No.9 and a world-class player.\"CraigCraig Casey is open and honest about the work he has to do to reach the top of his game. (Image: \u00a9INPHO\/Morgan Treacy)<\/p>\n

Craig Casey can\u2019t let it go. Chicago, the briefest of cameos, the smallest of errors \u2014 and yet it has eaten away at him for days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve watched it 25 times,\u201d he admits. \u201cI still don\u2019t know what I was thinking at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s talking about Cam Roigard\u2019s try, the score which turned a defeat into a nightmare for Ireland in Soldier Field.<\/a><\/p>\n

A flicker of misjudgment, a lapse of concentration, the kind of thing that happens to every player. But Casey isn\u2019t every player. His standards are suffocatingly high, his self-appraisal unforgiving.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s completely on me,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to take it on the chin and be better. It\u2019s never nice when a scrum-half scores against you either.\u201d<\/p>\n

That line \u2014 be better \u2014 is the essence of Casey. It\u2019s why he\u2019ll spend hours reliving a mistake others would bury. Why he\u2019ll walk into a team meeting and tell his teammates, unprompted, exactly where he went wrong.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been eating at me,\u201d he says. \u201cBut you probably can\u2019t recover from it if you\u2019re not honest with yourself \u2014 or with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no self-pity in his voice, no sulking, no deflection. Just an acknowledgment that standards were missed. And that, for Casey, is where growth begins.<\/p>\n

Honesty, for him, isn\u2019t some vague moral trait \u2014 it\u2019s a tool. It\u2019s how he dissects performances, good and bad. It\u2019s why he has little patience for excuses, even when they\u2019re available.<\/p>\n

Take last weekend\u2019s 26-13 defeat in Chicago. The easy narrative would have been rust, the timing of the fixture, or lack of preparation. Casey won\u2019t have it.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we can use that as an excuse,\u201d he says. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t show up. We were fresh, we just weren\u2019t good enough on the day. That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He shrugs, matter-of-fact. It\u2019s the same tone you hear when he talks about where he is in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely not where I want to be as a player,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve grown a lot over the last few years, but there\u2019s a long way to go. My goal is to be the number one scrum-half for Ireland and to be consistently world class. That\u2019s the level I\u2019m chasing.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that sounds ambitious, that\u2019s because it is. Casey doesn\u2019t pretend otherwise.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Rematch, Solider Field, Chicago – Ireland\u2019s red carded Tadhg Beirne and Beauden Barrett of New Zealand shake hands after the game(Image: \u00a9INPHO\/Dan Sheridan)<\/p>\n

He says: \u201cI don\u2019t want to be Ireland\u2019s second choice. I didn\u2019t want to be third choice the last few years either. It\u2019s about taking the chance when I get it and having no excuses when I don\u2019t play well.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a flicker of pride when he mentions how far he\u2019s come \u2014 the calmness that has crept into his game, the way the field now seems to slow down around him. He\u2019s 26 now, no longer the promising new guy. With 21 caps to his name, he knows it is time he became the delivery man. Japan on Saturday offers him the opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scan and the calmness \u2014 that\u2019s probably what\u2019s improved most over the last 18 months,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen things start to click in your mind, when you begin to see things you never saw before \u2014 that\u2019s when you know you\u2019re growing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably started to click for me at the end of the 2024 season in South Africa, when I got the chance to be the starting nine. From there, it\u2019s kicked on. But there\u2019s still a lot to add \u2014 layers to build.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leadership has helped too. Over the summer, Casey captained Ireland against Georgia and Portugal, and later Munster under new head coach Clayton McMillan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved it,\u201d he says. \u201cTo get back into an Irish jersey after injury, and to lead \u2014 that was special. Clayton gave me the chance to be captain with Munster and I really loved it.<\/p>\n

\" Ireland
\nIreland vs New Zealand All Blacks – Ireland\u2019s Tadhg Beirne dejected after the game(Image: \u00a9INPHO\/Dan Sheridan)<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s hard-edged, straight to the point, and he sets the week up unbelievably well. He\u2019s brought great ideas from New Zealand, and I\u2019ve just tried to be a sponge around that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a journey, yes, but one he refuses to frame as a struggle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve loved every single step,\u201d Casey says. \u201cInjuries have been part of it, missing the Six Nations was tough, but I\u2019ve learned from it. Hopefully, it can go on for another ten or so years.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet, beneath that sunny determination lies an edge \u2014 that competitive snarl you can\u2019t fake. Because Craig Casey isn\u2019t satisfied. He\u2019s restless, wired to improve, allergic to complacency.<\/p>\n

\u201cComfortable?\u201d he says, repeating the word as if it\u2019s foreign. \u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019re ever too comfortable. I certainly haven\u2019t got to where I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

So he\u2019ll keep reviewing, keep reflecting, keep demanding more. The cameos that frustrate him today may one day be the fuel for something far greater.<\/p>\n

Because for Craig Casey, the only acceptable direction is forward. And the only person he refuses to make excuses for \u2014 is himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Munster scrum-half says his brief appearance against New Zealand \u201chas been eating at me\u201d \u2014 but insists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[65813,61,60,58215,58216,43],"class_list":["post-124610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-craig-casey","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-rugby-union-team","tag-new-zealand-all-blacks-rugby-union-team","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}