Murphy: Osborne move to full-back ‘a stroke of genius’

Jamie Osborne’s former coach Johne Murphy believes the 22-year-old has passed his test at full-back with flying colours against the Springboks, and says the selection was a ‘stroke of geunis’ by head coach Andy Farrell.

Osborne, who was uncapped at Test level before this summer, started both games against the defending world champions in the absence of regular 15, Hugo Keenan, who is away with the Ireland Sevens.

While the versatile Leinster back had played the majority of his underage rugby at full-back, he has only ever started two games for Leinster in that position, with the majority of his 48 appearances for the province coming in the centre.

The Kildare man scored a try in Ireland’s first Test defeat in Pretoria, but was exceptional in the dramatic 25-24 win over the Boks at Kings Park on Saturday.

And Murphy, who coached Osborne at Naas RFC, says his emergence as an international level full-back is a major win for Ireland’s depth chart.

“I thought he was going to end up as Garry Ringrose’s successor at that 13 slot, but he’s probably going to move into that mould of a 13-15 space,” the former Munster wing said on the RTÉ Rugby podcast.

“He was always very good in the air, a very good left boot. He has all the attributes, a big strong guy, all the attributes to be a top class 15 or 13. His versatility is going to be a good thing for him.

“From a depth chart perspective it’s a stroke of genius from Farrell. You have three guys, one right footer [Keenan], two left footers [Osborne and Jimmy O’Brien] that are there, that can fill that slot very seamlessly.”

Bernard Jackman joined Murphy on this week’s podcast, and said Osborne’s calmness under a siege of contestable kicks from the South Africans in Saturday’s second Test was particularly impressive.

“It’s rare I’ve seen a Springbok team get so little return from contestables,” Jackman said.

“It’s big part of their game and every time he caught it, and did it with a minimum of fuss, you could just feel the Irish team growing around him.

“When you’re playing a team like the Boks who want to go after that area, and you feel that security behind you, it’s massive.

“It was Rob Kearney-esque, it was done with no fuss.”

As well as his aerial ability, Osborne came up with a decisive defensive intervention early in the second half, when he stopped Kurt-Lee Arendse with a one-on-one tackle, after the Springbok wing had been put clear into the Irish half.

“That tackle was a very important tackle and a hard tackle to make. He’d missed a tackle early in the game the previous week.

“You speak to any of the Leinster players, it’s hard to come in from the youths like he has, he’s not a talker as such, he’s quite shy as a kid, but he picks things up so quickly. To pick up international full-back play, in effectively two weeks, that’s nearly unheard of. It’s so rare,” Jackman added.

At 6ft 4in and just under 15 stone, Osborne has looked comfortable physically with the demands of professional rugby in his short career to date.

But Murphy added that as well as the physical stature, the 22-year-old is also has a high ‘Rugby IQ’.

“The only two people I’ve seen since I’ve been coaching schools and youths and club stuff that have picked up things and asked the right questions instantly are Sam [Prendergast] and Jamie [Osborne].

“It’s incredible. His character is ‘No Fuss’. You explain something to him and he’s like, ‘Yeah OK, fine’, and then he does it. Literally, to the millimetre of a step, it’s done exactly. That’s my experience with Jamie.

“People probably don’t know, he puts a huge amount of work into that off the pitch, from watching games, I’d say he lives on Hudl [analysis software], in terms of all types of games, reviewing, previewing, he’s just an out-and-out student of the game.

“How he does things with no fuss, that’s his character, and he just gets them done. He’s a top class individual, and I don’t think anyone can underestimate the amount of work he puts in from a viewing rugby perspective, it’s off the charts and I’ve seen that firsthand,” Murphy added.

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