For any young, home-grown outhalf thrust into the 10 jersey, the challenge of steering his team is perhaps all the more daunting. Jack Carty has had his share of brickbats as well as bouquets, not least due to his goal-kicking, so his sense of relief as well as ecstasy at nailing Saturday's match-winning conversion at the Sportsground was shared by his team-mates. They were as thrilled for Carty as they were for themselves.
By Carty’s own candid admission, goal-kicking has not been his forte this season. Indeed, the 24-year-old from Athlone, who is a product of Marist, Buccaneers and the Connacht academy, had a place-kicking ratio of 55 per cent this season in the Pro12 and Europe, landing 21 out of 38 kicks.
With literally no other kicker still standing this week, Carty resolved to put in additional sessions this week with both the Irish kicking and schools coach Richie Murphy and, on Friday, with some bloke called Eric Elwood.
Having missed two kickable three-pointers in Wasps’ win at the Ricoh Arena, the focus was back on him last week, never more so in his entire career than when this game hinged entirely on his conversion from wide to the right touchline.
Quiet
“I remember my first kick when I was standing over it, I couldn’t get over how quiet it was. It was like I was practising on the pitch on an off day. It was one of those things. When Jimmy [Gopperth] got his kick at the end I thought, ‘I might have a kick to win it.’ You try to block those things out.
“Obviously when Niyi [Adeolokun] got that turnover and we kicked to the corner and I saw it edging towards the line, I tried to block it out that I might have the kick. I suppose when I stood over it then it was doing the same thing that I had been doing all week.”
Murphy’s advice had specifically helped Carty understand why he was missing kicks, and so he was better able to cope with last Saturday’s first miss and thereafter land his remaining four kicks.
“You try not to change that much, but where my kicking was quite inconsistent I had to change a few things. I was kind of kicking around the ball, which led to the ball being hooked a lot to the left and then I’m over-compensating in trying to put it out on the right because I knew I was doing that.
“So, it was about not hitting around the ball but kicking through it. On the first one, that’s what happened – I kind of kicked around it and dragged it left and then the next four I kicked them in the sweet spot and they went straight then.”
The high point of his career to date was in stark contrast to the long journey home from Coventry the previous Sunday.
Aware
“I suppose it was a case that I was aware of it. Certain kicks, like my first one; they’re the ones that you need to be nailing. You are obviously aware of it [the criticism], I try to block it out, when maybe when I was younger last year or the year before those things might have gotten to me.
“But I know that if I keep working, work with the right people – I was working with Eric and Richie Murphy this week quite a lot – and that kind of pointed me in the right direction and it’s about building on that now.”
With big interpros away to Ulster next Friday and at home to Munster on New Year's Eve, followed by more European Champions Cup games, Carty knows that this next phase of the season affords him an opportunity to take his career onto another level.
“I’m under no illusions about the work-ons I have to do. I’ll focus on my defence and in the off-season I think I’ve made good strides with that. I suppose it’s about the consistency of my game, there’s a lot of ups and downs over the last few weeks and during the game, you could see I missed a kick to touch. That’s tough on the forwards when they see the kick of a ball loosely. I suppose it’s about ironing those things out and then hopefully I’ll be in contention.”
Mental preparation is a key part of any outhalf’s game, and Carty is no exception.
Bad performance
“I don’t know if people have heard of the Headspace app; I’d use that a good bit. It’s about focus and stuff like that. It’s the kind of thing where, say, if you had a bad performance you’d say ‘Ok, I didn’t do that.’ That’s what it is. It’s good to have it in the back of your mind to think about throughout the week. I had a good week with it this week so hopefully that’s what gave me the performance.”
Previously, he used to work with Niamh Fitzpatrick, a sports psychologist in Dublin. “She’s been with the Olympic team and the equestrian team. I actually haven’t been with her in a while, I’ve been trying to focus on my kicking and individual skills but I look forward to getting on to her again.”
