{"id":384574,"date":"2026-04-10T06:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/384574\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:40:10","slug":"tadhg-furlong-eyes-european-glory-as-leinster-prepare-for-sale-sharks-quarter-final-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/384574\/","title":{"rendered":"Tadhg Furlong eyes European glory as Leinster prepare for Sale Sharks quarter-final \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tadhg Furlong<\/a> has won pretty much everything in his career bar a World Cup. He\u2019s been part of four Six Nations title winning sides, including two Grand Slams, and another Triple Crown in March, and momentous Irish wins, been a three-time Lions Test series ever-present and has won Pro14s, a URC title and a Champions Cup. That said, the last of those was when Leinster beat Racing 92 in 2018 in Bilbao. <\/p>\n

There have been rivers of water under the bridge since then. One of six debutants in the win over Bath in January 2016 alongside Garry Ringrose and others, that 2018 triumph came in just his third Champions Cup campaign. And he\u2019s known more big losses than any other Leinster player since, starting in all four final defeats while last season\u2019s loss to Northampton was his second in a semi-final.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, a lot of finals as well,\u201d he reflects. \u201cYou can\u2019t be hindered by the past either. Every year it\u2019s a genuinely different group. I know a lot of the same faces there but it\u2019s a different group and different coaching staffs. You can\u2019t be hindered by the past or scared of it either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearing Furlong\u2019s take on where Leinster are currently performing as they approach Saturday\u2019s quarter-final against Sale Sharks at the Aviva Stadium (kick-off 5.30pm) seems particularly relevant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really dug it out there in between November and February, I thought we were working hard. Tough work. We\u2019ve come back in now after Six Nations; Glasgow was a very disappointing result; Scarlets, high-octane game, came out with a win.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast week was the first time we had everyone back in the building and compared to the Scarlets\u2019 week, it was a big week of growth for us, getting on the same page, ironing out a few things and getting cohesive together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose the answer is in the postcard for Sunday, really, at where we\u2019re at and where we\u2019re getting to. It feels like we\u2019re in a good place. It feels like we\u2019re ready to push on and hungry to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TadhgTadhg Furlong at Leinster Rugby training. Photograph: Andrew Conan\/Inpho <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Gordon D\u2019Arcy: Munster can only move on by leaving the glory days in the pastOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Furlong describes the 49-31 win over Edinburgh last Sunday<\/a> as \u201ca bit of a mad old game\u201d, adding: \u201cWe were a bit more fluid in our attack in creating opportunities but sometimes you just get giddy. We probably forced it. I forced a pass. You think it\u2019s on, but you maybe don\u2019t have full control. If you get it away, you know what happens.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever played in a game like that. I think I made one tackle. Fair play to Edinburgh where you throw an intercept, but they kind of read a lot of it. So yeah, it was a mad old game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last Sunday was also typical of how the game has morphed again. There were 75 tries and 530 points scored in the eight round of 16 ties. The new emphasis on winning aerial duels and attacking off loose ball has added \u201cthat extra kind of \u2018unstructuredness\u2019 to the whole thing\u201d as he puts it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably only the last year\/year and a half and even the last three\/four months it\u2019s changed again. It\u2019s just how teams are doing things. Everyone\u2019s adapting and changing as you go, with not being able to block and run it back. There was a while there where just two people were going up for it and just scrum, scrum, scrum. Now it feels like slap-backs, and it makes it a bit looser on the ground.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Rieko Ioane: Leinster finally see the return expected from an 88-cap All BlackOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Last weekend, during an interval break in one of the games, Furlong was scrolling through the channels where he came upon his first semi-final with Leinster, the 27-22 defeat to Clermont in Lyon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked at it and I was just plodding around. Attack, defence, set-piece. That was all you had to do. I was like: \u2018Jesus Christ!\u2019 And now as a front-row, (it\u2019s) attack, defence, set-piece, attack, defence and then kick chase. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to work as hard and there\u2019s no excuse as a front-rower not to be around it or haring up or haring back. So, my workload has gone through the roof because of it. You have to be able to do everything nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SaleSale Sharks’ George Ford (centre) passes the ball during the Investec Champions Cup round of sixteen match at Twickenham Stoop, London. Photograph: Ben Whitley\/PA Wire <\/p>\n

The lowest scoring game of last weekend, by a distance, was Sale\u2019s 26-17 win at Harlequins, which was almost old school as they went 3-0, 6-0, 9-0 through the wily George Ford before winning through two tries off lineout mauls.<\/p>\n

Furlong knows what to expect.<\/p>\n

\u201cTough. Like, tough. I think they have a very good coaching staff there. (Alex) Sanderson has a good history in the competition,\u201d says Furlong of the former Sale and England backrower who was an assistant coach in all three of Saracens\u2019 Champions Cup triumphs. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard a lot of good stuff from Sale lads about him and his motivation. Mike Forshaw, he\u2019s coming from Wales, an international coach, a northern man as well. They go good hard northern rugby, and they have a \u201810\u2019 there that\u2019s well able to control the game but also play a lot of ball if he wants to. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, that\u2019s what we\u2019re expecting. We\u2019re expecting a proper hard game of rugby.\u201d <\/p>\n

And like Edinburgh, this is Sale\u2019s last shot at silverware this season. They can give this a lash. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re in the quarter-finals of Europe, why wouldn\u2019t you give it everything you\u2019ve got?\u201d reasons Furlong. \u201cIt\u2019s huge. It\u2019s huge for us here in this club, but obviously it\u2019s a massive opportunity for them as well. It\u2019s knockout rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Leinster \u2018very close\u2019 to hitting their best, says Joe McCarthy as Sale challenge loomsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadhg Furlong has won pretty much everything in his career bar a World Cup. He\u2019s been part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[183521,85,46,148902,105,183522],"class_list":{"0":"post-384574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-champions-cup","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-leinster-rugby","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tadhg-furlong"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}