In many ways, it was the debut he didn’t expect.
Young Leinster prop Thomas Clarkson was only joined up with the senior squad for the first time three weeks ago when the squad travelled to Portugal for some warm weather training.
Fourth in the pecking order behind Tadgh Furlong, Finlay Bealham and Tom O’Toole made Clarkson’s chances of a run out most unlikely.
But with injuries to Furlong and O’Toole, Clarkson’s test debut landed on his door a lot earlier that even he may have expected.
“Just ‘you are staying on,” were Andy Farrell’s words on their return from Portugal.
“We were gyming on the Monday and the team was announced Tuesday morning so he kinda gives lads a heads up about what they are doing,” said Clarkson.
“So, he was like ‘You are going to be involved, 24th for the New Zealand game’ because obviously Tadhg had been in and out with a few niggles so I was half expecting it. It was either me or Jack Boyle because they normally take a tighthead so I kinda had a rough idea but he confirmed it there before we left.”
Before being introduced midway through the second half. The Leinster tight-head saw 8 minutes of action due to Bealham picking up a yellow card. But the 23-year-old admitted that the brief cameo didn’t help to settle any pre-game nerves he had before being introduced as a permanent replacement.
“Not really to be honest, I had to cool back down and then I had to warm back up.
“I was still pretty nervous coming on. I wasn’t expecting 30 minutes as well so I was just trying to just make sure I was going at it from the start. Probably blew my load a little at the start, I was running around like a headless chicken there for the first 20 minutes, the last 10 I kinda died a little.
“But I suppose that’s what you might expect, first cap.
“It was a bit surreal,” added Clarkson as he came to terms with his first senior outing.
“Like coming out for the anthem. It hadn’t been that full for the warm up and then coming out and the fact it was dark as well so that added an extra bit,” he continued.
Last week Bealham saw 70 minutes of action against the All-Blacks, so Clarkson knew that there was a fair chance of seeing plenty of game time this week. And Clarkson paid tribute to the Connacht prop after he helped coach him through the week in the lead up to the biggest occasion of his young career.
“Yeh, he has been unbelievably helpful. Just sitting down watching training every day.
“Just making sure I understand because I didn’t really get that many reps during the week because there was only two tightheads training. But he sat down with me and made sure I understood everything he was doing so I could do the same thing. So, yeh, I felt really comfortable with him, really good lad.
