Though Joey Carbery's summer tour lasted just one game before it was ended by an ankle injury, he did receive a small piece of luck in June - he got to work with Ronan O'Gara.
For the game against the USA and the two against Japan, Joe Schmidt brought in three coaches to work with an inexperienced Irish squad. Along with O'Gara, Felix Jones and Girvan Dempsey also spent time in camp during the tour.
First up was O'Gara for a week prior to the opening game against the USA. Carbery says he learned a lot from the former Munster man, including how to spiral kick.
I learned how to spiral. So, learning from the best.
He's been through so much and he's seen so much. It was just great to even sit and chat with him over coffee and he'd give you a few stories; he's fairly in on stuff.
The 21-year-old says that even growing up in New Zealand, everyone knew of O'Gara. Given that the two have regularly populated the same shirt on the pitch, Carbery says the 40-year-old is someone he looks up to - 'a real idol'.
Carbery doesn't want to disclose all the details of his chats with O'Gara but he does divulge that the Racing 92 coach heavily underlined the importance of keeping a cool head on the pitch.
Even though it was just a week together, one where there was a lot of 'general getting to know each other', Carbery feels he could still shoot O'Gara a text whenever necessary.
He really emphasised trying to keep a cool head in the thick of it all. The phenomenon of playing in a game and there's so much going on, that's the key thing to do when you're at 10 because you've got to maintain and control. He's really embedded that in me.
He's just a good guy and you can chat to him. I feel like I can always give him a text.
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Credit ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
