Tadhg Beirne tells a story about Johann van Graan replacing him around the hour mark back in his second season with Munster.
Beirne had arrived in Munster in 2016, and Van Graan a year later. They were still getting to know each other and the Monday after replacing him, the coach was about to learn more about Beirne.
“I went into his office,” recalls Beirne, “and I was like: ‘Why did you take me off?’ And he was like: ‘I just felt you looked like you needed to come off.’ And I was like: ‘Yeah? I feel like I’m an 80-minute player’.”
From that day on, Beirne became one of Van Graan’s 80-minute men.
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Last season, Beirne completed 80 minutes in all bar one of his 16 starts for Munster, when coming off for the last three minutes away to Ulster.
Ditto in his nine starts as an ever-present for Ireland, save for a HIA against Scotland. On the Lions tour he played every minutes of the Tests, after which he was voted player of the series, and played more minutes than any other member of the squad.
In all, Beirne played 2,544 minutes last season. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which Beirne read as part of his Leaving Cert back in the day, you suggest he would have to be the horse, aka Boxer. He laughs.
Did he ever feel tired? “I think I did at times. But by the time the games come around, you’re okay.”
You can understand why van Graan felt compelled to replace him. At times on the pitch – maybe it’s the headgear or the gait – he looks shattered.
“I feel like, often, towards the end of the game is when I can probably express myself a bit more. I suppose you’re probably watching people around you start to diminish a bit. I never feel so tired that I need to come off. I’m just ‘next play’. I don’t know what it is.”
He reveals one extreme example.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt as bad physically as I did after the first Lions Test, and through that whole week. When I got to the Friday, during the captain’s run I was like: ‘Actually this is the worst I’ve felt going into a game’. But then, within the next 24 hours it just got better. The adrenaline kicked in, but that was definitely the worst I’d felt in a long time.”
Playing every minute of a Lions’ Test series win made up for being restricted to a combined 16 minutes in two appearances off the bench in a losing series behind closed doors four years earlier.
In Australia there was the added bonus of his wife Harriet being there, and were his three sisters, Jennifer, Alannah and Caoimhe (who all lived there at the time) and his parents, Brenda and Gerry.
“My older sister’s fiancé was there, younger sister’s boyfriend was there as well, and then I had my aunt and godmother [Fiona] and uncle [Tomás] and their daughter Orla was out as well.” And so too were his cousins Leigh, who lives in Perth, and Cillian.
“We are really close, and I’m the only boy, and it’s great for my parents who are retired.”
In truth he hasn’t had a day with Ireland or Munster quite like that, but he’s not done yet.
The end of a playing career is often related to its beginning. One ventures Johnny Sexton played on until he was 38 in part because he didn’t make his breakthrough with Leinster until he was 23 and with Ireland when he was 24.
Similarly, Beirne had played plenty of rugby with the Irish Under-20s and in the AIL, but he was 23 when his career took off with the Scarlets, and 26 when he made his Ireland debut.
Last Saturday, Beirne was one of five Ireland players from Kildare in the matchday 23, and in that sense is something of a trailblazer. It’s always been more of a GAA county.
“Gaelic and soccer were my two main sports as a kid. Then I tried rugby when I was in fifth class and hated it, so I quit after a month.”
All changed when he went to Clongowes.
“Rugby was compulsory, so you end up playing, and then you see the senior cup team and all of a sudden you’re in awe.”
He had so many sliding doors moments. On leaving school he went into the Leinster system. They’d just created a Bs team which led to two years in the sub-academy with Dave Fagan before three seasons in the full academy.
Injuries blighted his three years in the academy, and his lack of bulk.
“It was a different game as well. It was very size-orientated and that’s not something I had at the time. I came out of Clongowes at 78kg. If you see pictures of me back then, I’m skin and bone. This morning, I was 120kg!”
During his time in the academy, as well as delivering pizza, coaching Blackrock and studying, Beirne played for Lansdowne Under-20s and senior team, with whom he won two AIL medals in 2012-13 and 2014-15, beating Clontarf in both finals, although he was benched for the second one.
We just fell short at times, unfortunately. But I’ve enjoyed all my time at Munster
— Tadhg Beirne
“I was on the bench. I didn’t turn up for training the week before the final and Mike Ruddock dropped me.”
Was Ruddock right? “Probably, yeah. I was a bit young and dumb. I think I went to the Trinity Ball the night before.”
The following season, Leinster opted to sign Ian Nagle and keep Hayden Triggs, thereby releasing Beirne.
“I remember walking off the field in UCD on my own knowing it was my last session. It was emotional, just knowing it was done.”
As he was doing his master’s, he told his agent that he had to stay in the Pro12 or England. The Scarlets came in for him, he flew to Wales, met Wayne Pivac and accepted the only rugby offer on the table.
“They signed me for very little money,” he says, laughing.
After two great years there, winning a Pro12 and Pro12 player of the season, Beirne was within one more season of becoming Welsh qualified when Munster stepped in.
Having made his international debut at the age of 26 in Australia, he was part of that series win and also the series win in New Zealand in 2023, and the Grand Slam earlier that year when sidelined with an ankle injury for the last three games.
“Obviously it was class to be out there,” he says of the St Patrick’s Day coronation after beating England in the Aviva. “But I’m hobbling around. I’m in a [moon]boot.”
There was also the Six Nations title in 2024, a host of landmark wins and individual awards, as well as Munster’s 2022-23 URC title and becoming Munster’s captain.
Yet, he sounds more driven than ever. Beirne has unfinished business and though he could yet play until he’s 40, not a huge amount of time to do so.
Everything [Clayton McMillan] has been doing is brilliant for the squad, giving lads opportunities
— Tadhg Beirne
“Ideally, we could have won a lot more. There’s been ups and downs, and that’s well documented in Munster. The quality of the squads we’ve had, we probably should have achieved a bit more. We just fell short at times, unfortunately. But I’ve enjoyed all my time at Munster.
“I thought Johann was incredible when he was in there. At times he got a hard rap for what he did, but in terms of the circumstances and what he was producing, it was very impressive.”
Like seemingly all at Munster, Beirne is hugely enthused by the arrival of Clayton McMillan this season.
“Last year was a difficult year and I think the freshness that he’s brought in and the way he’s doing things, the way he sees the game, simplifying it in many ways for a lot of players, takes a lot of pressure off them. Everything he’s doing has been brilliant for the squad, giving lads opportunities. It all adds to a happier, healthier squad.”
On Saturday evening Beirne comes up against another significantly influential coach in his career in Joe Schmidt, who gave him his debut in 2018.
“I feared Joe. I think most people did. Did he make me a better player? Yeah, 100 per cent, because of the detail part. That’s what everyone speaks about, and it’s the same with Faz [Andy Farrell].”
Farrell took the team on to another level with that 17-game winning run and the number one ranking. This team have many of the same personnel without quite scaling those heights since, but Beirne maintains: “We’re in a really good place. I think we’re evolving in the right way, in the way we attack and defend.
“I think there’s so much more in us and we’re a far cry away from our potential at the moment. I still think we’re one of the best teams in the world for sure. I think we just need to chase it, to go out and prove it.”
[ Andy Farrell hits the refresh button hoping to breath new life into IrelandOpens in new window ]
And, eh, the lineout malfunctions?
“I was calling the lineouts [against Japan], and it was just individual errors all around. The first one was an overthrow. It’s tough, that happens.
“And then we proceeded to have two calls when lads misheard the call. It makes the lineout look like a shambles, but they’re the easiest things to fix up. So all of a sudden, I’m trying to be clearer with my voice, so that they don’t mishear me again.”
That also happened for the one lineout he called in Soldier Field against the All Blacks before, of course, his third-minute yellow card when Beauden Barrett ran into him was wrongly upgraded into a 20-minute red card, which has been since rescinded.
[ Ireland’s unconvincing Japan jobOpens in new window ]
“When it happened, I was like: ‘Oh, I felt him on my shoulder there’. I remember saying to the lads in the huddle: ‘I think it’s a penalty. I may end up going off for a yellow card, I don’t know’.”
Initially an official told Beirne it would only be a yellow before subsequently confirming that, like all yellow cards, it would go to a bunker review.
“It wasn’t until he came up to me probably 30 seconds before I started warming up and he was like: ‘You have a red card.’ I was like: ‘What do you mean?’ It was a bit of a shock.”
James Lowe has described the Rugby World Cup in 2027 as his North Star. Is that Beirne’s, or has his eye on a third Lions tour in 2029?
“The Lions could be a push but the way I’m feeling I don’t see it [the World Cup] as my North Star now. I see it as the next thing to strive for. I don’t see it as an ending, if you get me. I just see it as the next big competition, especially after the last World Cup, to hopefully right the wrongs of that World Cup.”
“It still haunts me,” he admits of that epic 28-24 quarter-final loss to New Zealand, when a 37-phase Irish attack culminated in Wayne Barnes awarding Sam Whitelock a jackal penalty, even though he clearly didn’t release after tackling Rónan Kelleher.
“It wasn’t a penalty. Well,” Beirne corrects himself with a smile. “It was a penalty for us.”
It would be nice to go back to Australia and create more special memories in front of family and friends in two years’ time?
“That’s the goal.”
