Amid the fallout from Ireland’s Twickenham debacle, one regular lament in the meeja is Jamie Hagan’s move to Connacht. It goes thus: Ireland could have had another tighthead prop to call on had Jamie Hagan stayed with Connacht this year, instead of moving back to his home province, Leinster.
Hagan was a highly durable near-constant in the Connacht front-row (50 appearances in two seasons), and has found himself marginalised at Leinster, where he has to contend not only with Mike Ross, but also Kiwi prop Nathan White. Had he stayed at Connacht , he would have had the pleasure of going up against Toulouse, Glaws and Quins props and earning his corn as a Heineken Cup level scrummager, miraculously emerging unscathed from those encounters, instead of togging out for Leinster A in the British & Irish Cup.
The reality of course, is totally different, on any number of counts. Let us expel a number of myths.
Jamie Hagan has made a bad career choice. No he hasn’t. He has come to Leinster to work with Greg Feek and Mike Ross, the men responsible for turning Leinster’s scrum from a wet blanket that Toulouse pushed around in the 2010 HEC semi-final to something altogether more solid, and occasionally destructive. The hope is that he will emerge from this a better technical scrummager and a player Leinster can trust to start in high-stakes games. With all due respect to Connacht’s coaching ticket, we are given to believe it does not feature someone of Feek’s calibre on the books. His chances of improving to the level required in a technical position are far greater at Leinster.
Leinster are stockpiling, and Hagan is languishing in the reserves. Leinster have a plan for Jamie Hagan – he is not simply languishing in the A team. They are working with him to improve his scrummaging and fitness. Those with short memories would do well to recall that Mike Ross barely featured in his first season at Leinster – he spent the year in the gym, where Michael Cheika demanded he get fit enough to get around the paddock. The following season the Mike Ross we know and love today emerged.
Jamie Hagan has had very little gametime with Leinster. Another story that doesn’t hold up. Of Leinster’s three foremost tighthead props, the playing time this season is as follows:
- Jamie Hagan – 9 starts, 7 sub appearances, 634 minutes
- Mike Ross – 9 starts, 2 sub appearances, 660 minutes
- Nathan White – 6 starts, 11 sub appearances, 561 minutes
Hardly banished to the sidelines. One of those starts was in the Heineken Cup, in the final pool match against Montpellier. It looked, to us anyway, like a signal that Hagan was firmly in Leinster’s plans, and he did well to hold his own against Leleimalefaga, one of Europe’s more gargantuan looseheads.
Had Jamie stayed at Connacht the Twickers debacle wouldn’t have happened. Hardly. If Jamie Hagan had six HEC starts to his name with Connacht, and 13 more in the Pro12, he would still not have made the matchday squad for Ireland v England. The current 22-man squad rule, daft as it is, means Tom Court would still have made the bench, because he can, in theory, scrummage on both sides. Its also worth noting that being shunted around the Sportsground by Joe Marler and Jean-Baptiste Poux is hardly something that benefits one career – ask Court about Alex Corbisiero and see what he says.
In fact, he might not have made the training squad – after all, he never did before. Even when he was winning positive reviews at Connacht, Irish management never gave him much encouragement. He has a grand total of two Ireland A caps, both earned as a replacement in 2011 – Declan Fitzpatrick and Tony Buckley the starters at 3 in the two games.
It’s easier to stand out in an ordinary side like Connacht. Everyone wants to see the positive in you when you play in a wholehearted, but usually losing team. If the scrum sinks three times in a match but you make three big carries, chances are people will remember the carries. At Leinster, teams come to the RDS knowing their opponent has fewer weaknesses. If they sense one, they will look to extract everything out of it. The scrum was identified as such on Friday night by the Ospreys, who milked it, and won a tight match. Hagan was among those culpable. There’s still work to be done – plenty of it behind the scenes with Greg Feek.
Whiff of Cordite 