There’s living the dream and, well, there’s leaving the dream.
Ever since he was knee high to a grasshopper, which is difficult to imagine admittedly, playing for Ireland is all James Ryan ever wanted to do and he hasn't wasted much time going about it.
Still only 21 and effectively in his rookie senior year, Ryan was given his first cap on the summer tour against the USA (scoring a try with his first touch) before he'd even made his Leinster debut, and Saturday's Six Nations meeting with Scotland will already be his seventh cap. Not only is Ryan physically mature beyond his years, however, but mentally too.
“Definitely, all I ever wanted to do is be a professional rugby player since I could walk really. It has always been the dream for me. Obviously, I’m in a very lucky position. But, I can’t be getting too sentimental or anything like that. In a week like this, we’ve got a huge Test match and, if I lose track of that, I will get myself compromised. I’m staying process focused.”
Akin to Andrew Porter, whose dad Ernie was a pillar of the Old Wesley backline for years at inside centre, Ryan's dad Mark was a flanker with Lansdowne, so it was always likely he'd take to rugby.
But were Ireland to achieve something special over the next two Saturdays, the longer term impact can be gauged from the way Ryan himself drew his inspiration from the relatively golden era of the Noughties.
“I don’t know why it was, probably because I wasn’t good at any other sports,” Ryan quips as to the reason he was attracted to rugby in the first place.
“For me, it was all I ever wanted to be. I grew up in an era when O’Gara and O’Connell and O’Driscoll were playing. Munster won Heineken Cups. Leinster won Heineken Cups. That rubbed off on me as a kid. I kind of said, ‘I want a piece of that’.”
When did he reckon this goal became feasible? “I was about 6ft5in as a 15-year old and I started thinking realistically this was attainable.”
Ryan was one of six St Michael's pupils in succession to captain the Irish Under-20 team. That one also featured Porter and Jacob Stockdale, and reached the final of the IRB World Junior Championships two years ago. He was thus always destined for to play at this level, only for his career to be stalled by a hamstring injury which sidelined him for six months and effectively scuppered his first season out of school.
Incredibly diligent
As well as his athleticism, it's the Jamie Heaslip-like accuracy of his work which stands out, whether in his tackle technique, clearing out or carrying. Even so, the manner in which he has adapted to international rugby, and especially the white-hot intensity of the Six Nations, after just five starts for Leinster has been striking.
“It is definitely a step-up. Everything about it, the build up to the game, obviously there is more at stake. There is more pressure. There is more expected of you at this level. The game itself, it’s quicker, I found anyway. The physicality is huge.
“I don’t think it was shock to the system,” he added, when asked if that was the case. “It was definitely a step up and I was definitely aware of it. But, I don’t think it was me going, ‘oh shoot’.” It sounded like shoot anyway.
As well as being highly driven Ryan is also, by all accounts, incredibly diligent in his preparation, and so to the manor born for Schmidt.
“He’s obviously an incredible coach,” says Ryan of Schmidt, “and the level of detail that’s there is a step up from analysis as a schoolboy player, but I think it helps having those seeds sown earlier on. It was important when you’re younger, but it’s much more important at this level, much more emphasised.”
Away from rugby, Ryan is studying History and Politics in UCD, over four or five years rather than three, and particularly enjoys the former as an escape from the intense demands of being a professional rugby player.
“I love Irish history, so I love learning about the Easter Rising, and then the Troubles as well fascinates me – more modern history.”
For such an unassuming, modest young man, the nickname Big Cheese doesn't seem remotely apt, and Ryan maintains it is entirely the creation of Dan Leavy.
“Dan ‘Lost My Wallet’ Leavy has had a few things to say,” says Ryan with a smile. “He seems to lose his wallet at convenient times. Whenever the coffees and lunches come around he can’t seem to find his wallet. That’s certainly not what I call myself. He calls me that.”
If this is another sign of his increasing ease in the more rarefied air of the Irish squad, so too has been his role in choosing the music on the team bus.
“Church [Cian Healy] bestowed on me the music duties, so I have a load of playlists now because I’ve been doing it for a while. So in the gym and the bus, yeah. It’s a hard job.
"Everybody likes different stuff so it's such a range of music. I've got rap, house, dance music, everything. I've got some Irish classics. Church loves Christy Moore. "
