James Lowe is box office on and off the pitch, his effervescent personality engaging whether celebrating tries, seminal moments in matches or good-naturedly bagging team-mates for their idiosyncrasies. He refuses to seek refuge in the mundane.
Lowe is thoughtful and interesting on most topics, rugby or otherwise, his analysis sharp and flecked with honesty, the edge generally softened by a smile and a quip.
So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he provided an interesting insight into the “ghost” try he scored in the victory over France at the Aviva Stadium.
The 30-year-old demonstrated his agility in acrobatically touching down in the corner while trying to avoid a human missile in France’s Damian Penaud. Wayne Barnes’ on-field decision was a try, the television match official, New Zealand’s Brendon Pickerill concurred as he could not overturn the decision based on the initial angles available to him.
A subsequent replay, not shown during the montage viewed by the officials, suggested that Lowe’s left foot was in touch, having brushed the grass. The player’s initial reaction betrayed the fact that he didn’t think he had scored but not for the reason outlined.
He was convinced he had placed the ball on the touchline in the in-goal area. He explained: “Man, well, I actually knew as soon as I put it down, I was thinking, ‘ah damn, this is out, don’t worry about the foot’. Sure look, at home you get the rub of the green sometimes. Away from home I don’t think it was going to be a try so you take it when you can.”
The main reason that he didn’t think he had scored was that the curvature of the ball and his bird’s eye view from above obscured the touchline and not being able to see that he was convinced that the ball must have grazed the touchline in-goal, the ruling for which would have been “no try”.
He was then asked, what about the foot, did you feel it hit the pitch? “Don’t worry about the foot! The ball was out, man! I didn’t know at the time that my foot was out.”
![James Lowe during Ireland's squad training at the IRFU High Performance Centre, Sport Ireland Campus, Blanchardstown. 'We don’t want to get into a brawling match [against Italy]. But we understand that they want that and that if we can play smarter, I think we should hopefully be able to pull them apart.' Photograph: Dan Sheridan/Inpho](https://www.irishtimes.com/resizer/v2/YYPYTAQNYXT75XMO4O46JU4QME.jpg?auth=909e64dc1e2f161ac49436372dae365613ad2cfa15895aebc2118328684d49b6&width=800&height=534)
Did you not feel it at the time? “Hey, [Damian] Penaud was screaming down my neck, shoulder to shoulder with me. No, I didn’t know that my foot was out.”
The record books will show that James Francis Rawiri Lowe followed up his try in the opening Six Nations Championship match against Wales with another against France. There’ll be no asterisk.
Ireland captain Johnny Sexton touched on the presentation that included contributions from former players Brian O’Driscoll and Davy Irwin on the Monday night of the French week. It was interesting to discover Lowe’s take. He said: “Yeah, pardon my ignorance, I didn’t know too much about it, I’m not going to lie.
“Even a lot of the boys in the room didn’t really understand what people had to go through to be able to play for Ireland during The Troubles. So highly influential, I think, and we did have in the changing room an old jersey from one of the first Test matches ever played by Ireland, so that was pretty special.
“I’m pretty sure the boys . . . it motivates you, and obviously there were three of the boys playing their 50th [test match] as well, so it was very, very emotional. It was cool, yeah. I took a lot from it.”
Various players have touched on the hugely positive impact that Gary Keegan has had since taking up an elite performance coach with the Ireland senior team. Lowe is a disciple. “
He’s a very, very smart man, who is able to identify and break down, or put things into a perspective that you understand as to how to make you better.
“He’s obviously studied the mind and how people think, and I think he’s had a pretty significant influence on this team as a whole.”
So what does he do for a player, for you?
“I guess it’s stripping everything back to the basics and understanding what you’re good at, and taking away some of that cloudy, foggy mindset that you can get in when the pressure comes on. Rugby is a pretty simple game at the end of the day.
“It’s about contacts, it’s about collisions, it’s about cleaning deep on rucks and creating quick ball, and when you strip it down and say it like that, it’s very, very easy. But then it’s about getting yourself into an understanding and a framework to be able to do that under pressure with 60-odd thousand people screaming at you and baying for blood. He’s pretty good at that, a nice fellah.”
Looking ahead to Saturday, some of the focus since the France game has been on being more clinical and ruthless in taking opportunities and not leaving points behind in the in-goal area. Italy have retained that physicality but there is more nuance to their play as they have demonstrated in the games against France and England.
Lowe said: “They play a very direct style, [taking the ball] around the corner, trying to clean deep around rucks and create short sides for backs to flow into. We’re under no illusions that we really need to be on top of our game to make sure we don’t have any slip up.
“We don’t want to get into a brawling match. But we understand that they want that and that if we can play smarter, I think we should hopefully be able to pull them apart.”
