Some Irish Six Nations winners might have had more minutes and more involvements, but when they all returned to training with their provinces at the start of this week few would have bounded back to work with as much of a spring in their step as Jordan Larmour.
The 26-year-old bridged a gap of almost three years since his last taste of Test rugby when he replaced Robbie Henshaw for the last 17 minutes of the round two win over Italy, and then started Ireland’s Six Nations coronation against Scotland as a late replacement for Hugo Keenan, who was ruled out in the warm-up with a hip injury.
“He [Keenan] was carrying it on Friday, so I had a quick chat with Faz [Andy Farrell], just around ‘15′. I didn’t know how it was going to go, if Jack [Crowley] was going back there or Lowey.”
Farrell told Larmour to be ready, to be across all his work. He’d played his first game at fullback in a year against Cardiff a fortnight previously.
“I suppose when you’re 24th [man], you’re always prepping because you never know what is going to happen. I was across most things. I had a few chats with Hugo just to clarify a few things on Friday, because it was still kind of 50/50. But then he went out to do the warm-up and they called it there, so Faz just gave me the thumbs up.
“I suppose you don’t really have time to think. But I also had a chat with Faz when it happened and he said ‘just fully commit to it, just back yourself and just go out and do what you do’. That gave me a bit of confidence that he was backing me and I could just kind of come in and that’s what I try to do.
“It was a massively special day, how the whole weekend panned out, obviously getting to start for Ireland is something very special. It’s something that I still have massive ambitions to do. So yeah, it was a great day.”
Larmour’s return against Italy was six years ago almost to the day since his debut, also off the bench, against the Azzurri at the Aviva. Back in 2018 he was a raw, exciting and much heralded 20-year-old.
His third cap was in midfield for the last half-hour of the Twickenham Grand Slam coronation on St Patrick’s Day and by the end of that debut season he was also a double winner with Leinster and a scorer of some stunning tries.
His first Test start was the following November, when he scored a hat-trick against Italy in Chicago. And so he remained a regular in Irish match-day squads.
When he played against Japan in July 2021, in front of a restricted crowd of 3,000, it was his 30th cap in four seasons as an international. He had a decent strike rate of seven tries considering 17 of his games had been off the bench.
Yet, after getting injured half an hour into that Japan game, he pretty much vanished from the Irish international radar. Not every career is linear, but Larmour’s graph has been more testing than most.
Injuries and fluctuations in form, and the competitiveness of the outside backs, especially in Leinster, meant he watched the New Zealand tour, the Grand Slam and the World Cup from the outside.
“There were probably a few low points along the road. Obviously when I first came on, I was playing for Ireland, I started a few games and got that taste for it and not playing for three years, sometimes you might be second guessing yourself. ‘Am I good enough? ‘What do I need to do to get better?’ Stuff like that.
“Definitely those thoughts do creep into your head but it’s important to stay as positive as possible. That’s what I do and see where I can get better and work at that as hard as I can.
“It’s about putting in a good performance, backing it up by training well, just feeding your confidence. Get that going and then you get a bit of momentum going and you’re feeling good and that all feeds into itself as well.”
Larmour’s numbers with Leinster have remained consistently good in the last four seasons. Ahead of Friday night’s URC summit meeting with the Bulls at the RDS (kick-off 7.35pm) his six tries in a dozen games this season match his try haul from 14 games last season, are two behind his tally of eight from a dozen games two seasons ago and he scored six from 12 appearances in 2020-21.
“The body is feeling really good, that helps mentally,” he says. “It’s a class team to be involved in as well. That helps but I’ve been really enjoying it this season and there are a huge few weeks coming up now with the Bulls this week, into Leicester next week and then it’s the quarter-finals, hopefully, if we get that far.
“But it’s a massively exciting week. I think there are four points between us, first playing second, and obviously what happened two seasons ago, that’s something we are conscious of,” he adds in reference to the jarring 27-26 semi-final loss to the Bulls.
“We were watching a few clips [of that defeat] this morning, to see where we can better. It’s never nice losing,” he concludes, “but losing in the RDS is a ‘no-no’.”
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