ANGER MANAGEMENT
Devin Toner was justifiably irate at the manner of his World Cup exclusion but now the Leinster veteran is using it as motivation to reignite his Ireland career
ASUNDAY night on the sofa was interrupted by the buzz of a mobile phone. Devin Toner picked it up and looked at the screen. When he saw the name, he understood the news would not be good, and turned to his wife, showing her the identity of the caller. Then he went out into his kitchen and had the most disappointing news of his career confirmed in a conversation with Joe Schmidt.
Toner is an improbable cause celebre, but that is what he became when news broke of his exclusion from Ireland’s World Cup squad. The Meath man has forged a tremendous career, winning a Grand Slam, two Six Nations championships and four European Cups.
He has, so far, been capped by Ireland 67 times, and he has 242 games played for Leinster.
It is 14 years this month since he made his first appearance for the province. It was in a Celtic League game against Border Reivers in Donnybrook, in front of an attendance that just crept above 4,000.
This was long before the success and respect that have become parts of the team’s identity. Munster were Ireland’s powerhouse back then. Toner replaced Adam Byrnes for the final 15 minutes, in a team that included Denis Hickie, Reggie Corrigan and Guy Easterby.
He was a few years away from becoming a starter, but they were his first steps in competitive, professional rugby.
Almost a decade and a half later, Toner was the topic that inspired most debate about Schmidt’s World Cup squad. The decision to leave him out looked ill-conceived; what happened in Japan proved as much.
When Andy Farrell gathered 45 players for a two-day camp before Christmas, Toner was part of the squad. When the new head coach whittles his numbers down closer to the Six Nations, Toner looks certain to stay involved, all the way to starting in Farrell’s first game against Scotland on February 1.
On the night of September 1 last, though, Toner answered a call that made him a subject of national debate.
‘I was just on the couch with my wife, Mary, and we were watching TV and the name came up and I just showed it to her and
I was like, “What’s this?”’ he remembers.
‘I went to the kitchen and took the phone call and that was it. I went back in and she couldn’t believe it either. That was it.’
This is all recalled in a characteristically even way. Despite being a huge physical presence in one of the most gruelling of professional sports, his public countenance has always been laidback.
‘I probably take things in my stride, a bit too much, probably, people would say,’ he answers, smiling. ‘But obviously I was disappointed, like, I was bitterly, bitterly disappointed,’ he emphasises, and it is easy to believe him. ‘I suppose it was probably anger for a day or two as well but I got over it. It sunk in that I had to move on.’
His wife, he recalls, was angrier than he was – ‘I was telling her to calm down,’ he laughs – but as shock gave way to a searing disappointment, support came from close but also some more unlikely places. ‘Who did I talk to? Well, obviously my wife is up there with the best of them. ‘I think one of the best texts I got was from Rog. Ronan O’Gara sent me a really, really nice text, and that was unexpected so it meant a good bit to me.
‘It was: “Don’t let it define you as a player. You’ve loads of years left in you and don’t let it define you. Move on.” I felt that was really good from him. And then all my contemporaries texted me. It’s good seeing the support from everyone, I suppose.’
His recollection of that conversation with Schmidt is sharp, and he is adamant that the subsequent claim by the coach that fears over a possible citing for Toner, arising from a tackle he made in the warmup win over Wales, was not an important factor in his omission.
‘The conversation that I had with Joe was: I wasn’t going because they needed a tight-head lock and that I didn’t show enough in the pre-season games.
‘And then coming to the tail end of the conversation, he mentioned something about a high hit but like, he never used it as an excuse that I wasn’t going or why I wasn’t getting picked.
‘So when I saw that, to me that’s maybe an excuse, do you know what I mean? I don’t know.’ There was nothing for it but applying himself to the start of Leinster’s season. He had been entitled to suppose that matches early in their schedule, when every team is denuded of its Test stars, would not have been concerning him. But when he was left at home, he directed his attention to his province. There was valuable advice there, too, in the form of head coach Leo Cullen. He was a man who had been forced to deal with World Cup disappointments in his own career.
He was left out of two World Cup squads by Eddie O’Sullivan, in 2003 and 2007.
‘I came back and obviously all of the coaches, all of the lads were brilliant about it,’ says Toner. ‘Leo was really good as well because he went through similar.
‘Getting into the start of the season, being one of the senior players gave me more focus because I had more pressure on my shoulders.’
He played against Benetton, the Ospreys, Edinburgh, and the Dragons before the Test players returned to blue after the World Cup. In three of those four matches, he played 80 minutes. It was an eloquent statement of his road-worthiness.
‘Yeah, yeah, that’s me,’ he grins. ‘I always tell Leo I’m ready for the 80 if he needs it. I’m quite confident and when you’ve got me and Fards (Scott Fardy), both elder statesmen now, one of us is going to have to do it (play the full match) when both of us are playing.’
On the morning of the Benetton match, which was an away game, Ireland were stunned by Japan and lost a famous World Cup encounter. He is asked if he watched the match in the team hotel.
‘I think so, I’m trying to remember now,’ he says, appearing genuinely fogged in the memory. ‘I can’t really remember, I might have been up in the room.’
As Ireland’s plans unravelled, Toner was starting a season that, so far, has seen him play as well as any lock in Ireland. His Leinster partnership with James Ryan looks a good match for straight transplantation into the national side now.
Those seeking information on his Test career are still obliged to use a ‘past players’ link on the IRFU website. That status should be upgraded imminently. His last appearance for Leinster before today’s match against Lyon was in Thomond Park on December 28.
Leinster won an inter-provincial derby, the result distinguished by the resolution showed by a young Leinster team in which Toner and Fardy provided most of the experience.
Winning a bruising match in a hostile ground, against their keenest rivals, was the type of effort that one suspects is worth more to a squad than even the most dazzling, instinctive win.
‘Yeah, it’s huge,’ says Toner. ‘In the interpro derbies especially, away wins are huge. We went to Connacht when we got whipped at the end of a season (April 2018) when it was John Muldoon’s last game, and then the next season we looked at that and obviously played really well, and we got that win over there.’
The win last month summoned to mind a doughty victory by Leinster in Musgrave Park in November 2007, on a wicked night when they started to show the mettle that eventually made them the champions of Europe.
Cullen and Malcolm O’Kelly were the Leinster locks that night, and now it is Toner cast in the role of weathered veteran, the leader in the second row.
His contract is up at the end of the season, and he is in negotiations with Leinster. It should be business that is neatly concluded.
‘Yes, I’m going to go as much as I can,’ he says of his ambition to play on.
‘I’m 33 and I’m as fit as I ever have been at the minute. I’m feeling good, no injuries, so yeah, I want to keep going. You never know, I might be a Hinesy (Nathan Hines) going at 38 or 39.’
He is not done. He is not a comfortable cause celebre, either. Within weeks, Toner should be back in the more familiar surrounds of the Ireland second row.
‘MARY COULD NOT BELIEVE IT – I HAD TO TELL HER TO CALM DOWN’