STUART McCloskey is bidding to ensure his Ireland recall amounts to more than reminding Paul O’Connell how he once got one over him.
The Ulster centre has not featured in any of Ireland’s last 13 Tests but will add to his 19 caps this month with Garry Ringrose and Bundee Aki with the Lions and Robbie Henshaw injured.
With Finlay Bealham drafted in by the Lions because of injury, McCloskey — who turns 33 in five weeks’ time — is the oldest player in interim coach O’Connell’s squad.
He is also the only member of the travelling party which arrived in Tbilisi yesterday ahead of Saturday’s Test against Georgia who played against 45-year-old O’Connell, in 2014.
He recalled: “I was in one Ireland training camp with him. I think I’m the only one in the squad to have played a game against him as well. We won down at Thomond that day for Ulster.
“Ulster sent down the biggest B team of all time because it was a dead rubber at the end of the season and Munster had their best team out, they were trying to get second.
“Michael Heaney scored a try. James McKinney was at 10. Good story because the coach said, ‘Ah, you’ll play more next season’ to him and he was actually leaving that summer.
“I won’t say who the coach was but you can figure that out.”
It was Mark Anscombe, with McCloskey hoping O’Connell’s memory is as good as his own.
He said: “I’ll not mention that to him, I’m trying to get picked, but I like to think he knows it.”
A year earlier, McCloskey was in Georgia as part of an Emerging Ireland team which competed in the Tbilisi Cup.
He said: “I remember it was the time the animals escaped from the zoo.”
The IRFU press officer quickly quipped that it was not a metaphor. That actual zoo escape saw a penguin swim to the Azerbaijan border.
McCloskey’s journey has not been quite as dramatic — but neither has it been straightforward.
He made his Six Nations debut against England in 2016 but did not appear in the tournament again until seven years later.
In the meantime, he won only five caps, all against tier-two nations.
Two of them came four years ago, during the last Lions tour, so he knows how they can be used as a launchpad.
He said: “I still think I’ve got a bit of rugby to go in my career.
“So this Lions period the last time, when we played America and Japan, sort of springboarded me on to get a lot more caps and be a lot more involved. I think I’ve been involved in two Six Nations wins in that time and a World Cup.
“Hopefully I’ll put a good foot forward for any games coming up over the next few years and keep my head around the place and push into the next World Cup.
“I don’t think I’m doing a lot wrong. It’s just there’s four very good centres, two of them are away and you could argue Robbie would’ve been away as well if he wasn’t injured, so I don’t think I’m too far off it.”
