You wouldn\u2019t describe the rare migrations from one side of the front row to another as a one-way street, but there is definitely one direction of travel that throws up less obstruction than the other.<\/p>\n
Peter Clohessy always said that the switch from tighthead to loosehead was the easier of the two. How much easier, though? Is it a case of sitting a pass maths exam after studying the honours paper? It\u2019s not simple to quantify.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know,\u201d said Tom O\u2019Toole with a laugh after his first start for Ireland at loosehead last Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was maybe a difficult transition at the start because there was a lot going through my mind. Once I simplified it, and once I talked to the right people, I kind of found it then.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I narrowed it down, then I found it maybe a little bit easier to get the flow of it. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s easy, but it’s certainly different, which I’m kind of enjoying at this stage of my career, to be able to play both sides now, which is really promising.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ireland\u2019s squeaky win against Wales at the Aviva Stadium three days ago wasn\u2019t just his first start in the No.1 shirt for his country. It was his first in the Six Nations too. All told, the Ulsterman has started just three times in 21 Tests.<\/p>\n
This was an education in more ways than one.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Toole, an Ulster tighthead, has now featured four times on that side for Ireland. It didn\u2019t start great with his knock-on at the base of a ruck costing Jack Conan a try that would have made it 14-0, but things got better from there.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s 27 now, no rookie, and he found comfort in the guys around him all week and on the night. Alongside him in that front row were a pair of Lions in Tadhg Furlong and Ronan Kelleher. Three of the five behind them at the set piece were Lions too.<\/p>\n
Add in his clubmate Nick Timoney and captain Caelan Doris and O\u2019Toole had a solid and strong support network. And he had picked the brains of everyone from Cian Healy, Andrew Porter and Angus Bell in a bid to find a soft landing.<\/p>\n
Porter and Healy had both made the same transition. Bell is a 50-cap Wallaby who packs down with O\u2019Toole at Ulster the latter lines out at tight while doing the stint on the far side in training.<\/p>\n
The last time O\u2019Toole featured at loose in a game for Ulster was against Benetton last season when he moved over to accommodate Scott Wilson off the bench. Ireland have been hothousing the idea since he played there against Fiji in November of 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s something that’s always been in the pipeline a little bit. Around that Fiji game a little while ago when I was playing loosehead. Andy just said, \u2018look, just don’t think about it too much, you’re loosehead now, that\u2019s the way you have to think\u2019. So just try not to give myself any excuses, or any tap-outs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Fiji game was a really good learning for me. I gave away a couple of penalties, but it was a good learning. We got a good couple of successful scrums as well. But it’s something that I definitely wanted to show that I’m capable of. I had the belief in myself that I could do it, and the right people around me had belief in me as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Timoney spoke last week about how he wasn\u2019t over-thinking anything as he broke back into the squad and the team after a long absence. O\u2019Toole clearly took Farrell\u2019s advice on board and approached it in much the same way. A \u2018just do it\u2019 approach.<\/p>\n
The head coach must be pleased as punch with the results.<\/p>\n
Farrell has started no less than five men in that No.1 jersey going back to the last summer tour: Porter, Paddy McCarthy, Jack Boyle, Jeremy Loughman and now O\u2019Toole. Michael Milne has come off the bench four times in the same spell.<\/p>\n
If the scrum hasn\u2019t exactly been a weapon in that time, then it has held its own after the trauma of the demolition job suffered at the hands of the Springboks in September, but this is a case of looking forward more than back.<\/p>\n
Only 15 months stand between now and the start of the squad\u2019s preparations for next year\u2019s World Cup. O\u2019Toole might be fifth in the depth chart at loose now, but a versatile player\u2019s value multiplies when it comes to the global gatherings.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly. It’s a funny position now with the amount of injuries we\u2019ve had. Never really in the last few years, especially with such a specialist position, have we had that many injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it’s given me an opportunity to put my hand up and to start a big game like that, and to kind of be able to perform hopefully that will leave me in good stead for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You wouldn\u2019t describe the rare migrations from one side of the front row to another as a one-way…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54046,61,60,43,15551],"class_list":["post-336557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-irish-rugby","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-six-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336557","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=336557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}