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European Champions Cup favourites and perennial contenders Leinster count on Scott Fardy to lock their scrum, along with Devin Toner.
The Leinster pack is a Test-quality juggernaut: Tadhg Furlong, Cian Healy, Jack McGrath, Sean Cronin, the towering Toner, Seán O’Brien, Jamie Heaslip, Rhys Ruddock, and Jordi Murphy form an Irish international nucleus.
But Fardy has been the toast of Dublin’s pubs.
As the Irish Times put it, after his two-try, two-assist turn in the romp over Glasgow, “Fardy is already a foreign lock to compare to the influence of Nathan Hines and Brad Thorn.”
In the remarkable win over Ulster the week before, Fardy was all over the pitch, rallying the Leinstermen, and asserting all the battle-hardened nous needed to take them over the line.
The Dublin team is the bookies’ choice to win the ECC in Bilbao in May. They have a home quarter-final booked already, with a round to play.
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Fardy was a late bloomer in the Wallabies set-up. His debut at age 29 went well, as the best player on the field in an unhappy 2013 Bledisloe Cup match for Australia.
Perhaps he was overlooked until then because he did not attend the ‘right’ schools in New South Wales. Or because he looks to be first to the ruck, blasting at a surprisingly low height for a 6 foot 6 man, instead of looking for the carry statistics.
Leinster supporters are used to looking for a lock to create room at the breakdown, win the battle of the shoulders, and grunt out a full 80 minutes.
The Roar’s own Geoff Parkes predicted the Fardy-Leinster marriage would have the right chemistry in his 2017 book ‘A world in conflict: The battle for rugby supremacy’, writing, “It is another match of attitudes and values; Leinster and Fardy seem perfectly suited.”
Few Australians could crack this Leinster starting pack. In fact, would even David Pocock get the nod over O’Brien? Yet Fardy has a starting Leinster lock jersey firmly in his grasp, with his dirty work, his clever sledging, and his articulate encouragement.
In 1000 or so minutes, he’s carried about 100 times to consistently good effect, because he presents the ball well and is no stranger to the offload. He’s also tackled hard over 140 times, and won ten turnovers.
Scott Fardy in his Wallabies days (Pic: Tim Anger)
So how can Fardy be one of the best forwards playing in one of the best two or three packs in the world, but not good enough to crack Michael Cheika’s 34-man squad last June?
Cheika says he wanted to see what Ned Hanigan could do, but surely (as Parkes points out) Hanigan would have benefited from Fardy’s mentorship during his wildly underwhelming apprenticeship.
More importantly, why did Cheika and Rugby Australia not fight harder to retain Fardy, whose ethos and skill set seem to perfectly fit the national gameplan for 2018-2019? Playing deep into the phases depends heavily on a bully forward in Fardy’s mould.
He’s not too old either, at Kieran Read’s age. Besides, no team has won the World Cup with an inexperienced pack.
Is Fardy the kind of grizzled, hard forward that Cheika needed to compensate for a lack of ruck impact by Michael Hooper, or can Hanigan or Jack Dempsey become a younger, faster version of Fardy in time for Japan in 2019?
Is this all because at Leinster, he can be a fast-ish lock instead of a slow-ish flank?
In the meantime, Fardy is loved more by strangers than in his home.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.