'You must feel like you've come of age and made your mark in the professional game,' Joe Molloy said to Tadhg Furlong on Newstalk's Off The Ball on Wednesday evening. 'You do and you don't,' answered the retiring Furlong.
The Leinster and Ireland prop was one of the standout performers for the Lions on the tour of New Zealand. Praise, even from the usually miserly New Zealand media, was abundant for the 24-year-old.
That is praise which Furlong, who was called the best tighthead in the world following the three match series, finds hard to embrace.
When I see that sort of thing, I push it away. They are probably looking from the outside, they might have seen a carry but they didn't see something I did really sloppily. If you see that stuff [praise], I find it kind of easy to dismiss it.
Even following a successful tour such as the one just past, Furlong found it tough to put on paper what he had actually done well.
Maybe it’s an Irish thing, maybe it’s a country thing or something. I don’t know. You sit down at the end of a game, or you do a review, or you have to send some feedback to coaches. They ask you to fill out what you think you did well, what you think you didn’t do well.
You can fill out what you didn’t do well and what you can improve on, you can list them off. When it comes down to writing what you did well, you know, you’re struggling. You’re looking at an empty page. I find it very hard to say those things.
Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
