Up to now, Garry Ringrose's sole purpose in international rugby has been to act as an antidote to Ireland's one-dimensional back play; as a promise that the style of rugby will improve some day soon, when we have a glorious back three partnership of Henshaw, McCloskey and Ringrose. Away from the turgid Six Nations, the young Leinster centre's style of play has been mightily refreshing; he has a wonderful habit of both offloading and simply running past players.
Ringrose is the only one of those three players yet to be capped by Ireland, despite Brian O'Driscoll's very public suggestions to the contrary. One of the reasons cited for his non-selection is his size. Ringrose weighs roughly 92kg, compare that to Jamie Roberts' 110kg, or even the 103kg carried by Robbie Henshaw.
His fleet of foot is matched with a refreshing attitude to the sport also.
He spoke to Peter O'Reilly in The Sunday Times and Ringrose's attitude to strength and bulking up is greatly discordant with the relentless upper-arms race the sport has become. Ringrose is planning on slowly building up his strength, rather than rushing into the gym in order to fast-track his international career:
I wouldn't lose sight of the player I am. So I'm sure I could pig out and put on a couple of kilos but that wouldn't necessarily be very effective. So, it's gradually chipping away at it and naturally getting older, hopefully I'll get that bit bigger or more physical and imposing on the pitch. It wouldn't necessarily be a set target - just that natural progression.
While Ringrose is rightly aiming to build up his level of strength in order to give himself the best chance of competing, it is good to see his emphasis is not solely on size.
[The Sunday Times]
