Tadhg Furlong was close to tears as he walked around the Melbourne Cricket Ground last Saturday night, savouring a 29-26 victory over Australia, a Test series win at the third time of asking and a love affair with the British & Irish Lions that was drawing to a close. Time spares no man; not even one of the greatest players of his generation.
“It is a little bit emotional,” the Ireland prop said. “The Lions has played a massive part in my career. It has shaped the way I play the game and think about the game. I know this Lions tour will be me closing the book on the Lions. I don’t want it to end. It is a special thing to be a Lion.”
Furlong, 32, was a rising star with fewer than 20 caps under his belt when he was picked for the 2017 tour to New Zealand. He had signalled his quality the previous autumn with breakthrough performances as Ireland defeated the All Blacks in Chicago, stood tall in a ferocious rematch at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin and then defeated Australia.
Furlong’s displays in his early international career put him on the Lions plane to New Zealand in 2017
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A big-scrummaging Six Nations followed and Furlong’s performance for the Lions in a 12-3 midweek victory over the Crusaders, whose pack boasted an All-Black tight five, earned him selection for the first Test.
Eight years later, Furlong will bow out in Sydney on Saturday having started nine consecutive Tests across three tours — a remarkable feat for a tight-head prop. Only four men in 137 years of Lions history achieved a longer streak, led by Willie John McBride on 15, but none in the professional era.
What makes it all the more impressive is that the Irishman has on this tour recaptured some of the eye-catching form that made him the best tight-head prop in the world after years of being held back by injuries.
A demoralising succession of calf and hamstring tears felt to Furlong like death by a thousand cuts. In 2020, during the Covid lockdown, he had 12 setbacks with the same injury. At one stage Furlong had started to contemplate how he would consider his career if he was forced to retire. Proud but unfulfilled would have been the answer.
This season has been no different. Furlong has played only eight games for Leinster and one for Ireland, only once managing to string together three matches on the bounce. The Lions was always a goal that kept driving him through those darker times. He made it to South Africa in 2021 and now to Australia. “Once you get to two years out this thing goes into your head,” he said.
Furlong, middle, and his captain Itoje, right, “epitomise what it takes to be a top-level player” according to head coach Farrell
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On this tour, including the send-off game in Dublin, Furlong will have played in seven of the ten matches, starting five. It was in the midweek game against the ACT Brumbies that we started to see flashes of Furlong at his best. He then delivered a vintage performance in the first Test.
“It’s amazing, and it’s been well documented how much he loves playing for the Lions,” Andy Farrell, the head coach, said. “Over the past year or 18 months, the continuity of his game and fitness . . . it just always happens that when this [the Lions] comes around, how much it means to him to get himself in the right frame of mind to be able to do what he’s done.
“It isn’t just the performances that have been through the roof, it’s also his manner on a Lions tour. I’ve never seen him in such good spirits, so he’s ready to go again.”
Furlong and Itoje as rookies on the 2017 tour. The pair will further cement themselves into Lions history with their ninth successive Tests on Saturday
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It will also be Maro Itoje’s ninth consecutive Lions Test, although the first of them in 2017 was off the bench. “Well, look at the quality of player they are, look at the standing that they have with any group that they represent,” Farrell said. “Those two lads epitomise what it takes to be a top-level international player.”
Furlong is one of the modern greats; an infectious character whose love of rugby is reflected in the vivacious way he plays. He nails the fundamentals of being a tight-head prop, and his dynamic and powerful carrying makes him a direct threat with the ball tucked under his arm.
Over the years, he has also set standards for the position with his fluid catch-pass skills — even doing a mean impression of Finn Russell with a long, floaty ball off his left hand in the first Test.
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Joe Schmidt, now the Wallabies’ head coach, gave Furlong his Ireland debut. “I’d rather he wasn’t starting for them for the third Test in a row because he is a pain in the neck,” Schmidt said. “He is such a gifted player and such a good character. I love guys like that.
“The first time I met him, he came in with his mum and dad into the Leinster academy. I was coaching there and he got brought into the office. He blocked the sun briefly and those shoulders haven’t got any smaller.
“He is an impressive young man and a world-class player. The first time he played a couple of Tests for us in Ireland, he found it pretty tough, as young props often do. South Africa was a baptism of fire for him.
“The first thing you realise is, ‘This kid is resilient’. Since then he has grown into a player who is multi-purpose. I will never forget the deft offload he gave to Bundee Aki to give CJ Stander a try at Twickenham [in 2018].
“He is very good — dynamic — in the defensive line. We were here on tour in 2018 and I remember [the former Australia flanker] David Pocock just about to get over the ball and Tadhg Furlong put him back a couple of metres from the ball.
“He is a really well-rounded character. If he wants a day off on Saturday, I would be happy to see that.”
The great irony in Schmidt’s answer is that Furlong’s clear-out on Pocock looks remarkably similar to Jac Morgan’s on Carlo Tizzano in the build-up to the Lions’ winning try at the end of the second Test, which Australia maintain was illegal.
Furlong believes his form has been helped by a lack of training. “You can’t beat playing the game,” he said. “Ironically, the lack of training on this tour is great for my body because you come to the game fresh. Previously I would have had a lot of overload injuries. It’s nice to play rugby and get match-fit by playing rugby, two games a week.”
Furlong credits his physical condition on this tour to a “lack of training”
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Furlong will play on Saturday in a Lions pack featuring six Irishmen, the number bolstered further from the second Test by James Ryan’s inclusion in the second row. Ollie Chessum drops to the bench.
Ryan, 29, had a quiet start to the tour but he has grown into the team over the past couple of weeks. “He’s seen his niche in his game, and not trying to be somebody else,” Farrell said. “He does all the unseen work, all the graft stuff and has done it with a bit of venom in his game.
“He’s not tried to be a ball–playing forward like some of the second rows have been, but he hits hard defensively and hits rucks really well, so we all need a bit of that.”
Farrell will have used only 27 players in his Test squads over the course of this series
DAVID ROGERS/GETTY IMAGES
The only other change in the starting XV is Blair Kinghorn’s inclusion on the left wing, although Farrell has reconfigured the bench, with Ben Earl selected in a split of six forwards and two backs; a nod perhaps to fatigue levels.
He could have rested some players. They are all battling fatigue. Tom Curry and Tadhg Beirne have put in a mighty shift. Itoje’s season will click into a 12th month. Alex Mitchell has been involved in all ten match-day squads on this tour.
But they all go again. Farrell has gone full strength in his quest to seal a 3-0 clean sweep. He will have used only 27 players in this Test series.
“We made it clear to ourselves that we want to represent the group properly by giving this a good shake on Saturday,” Farrell said. “This one last push is something that we promised we were going to do eight weeks ago.”