CRAIG Casey will captain Ireland for their summer Tests against Georgia and Portugal.
Interim boss Paul O’Connell has put his faith in the Munster scrum-half to lead his team out in the absence of captain Caelan Doris.
Since Andy Farrell selected a record number of Ireland players to tour Australia with the British and Irish Lions, O’Connell has been left with a majorly inexperienced squad for the summer Tests.
Captain Doris was unavailable with a shoulder injury and Dan Sheehan – who captained Ireland against Wales in the six nations when Doris was injured – was selected for the Lions.
With other seasoned internationals such as James Ryan and Jack Conan also being selected for the Lions as well as retirements from Cian Healy, Peter O’Mahony and Conor Murray, the captaincy was left to the 26-year-old.
When speaking to Virgin Media he spoke about what it means to him to be given the Ireland captaincy for the summer Test matches.
He said: “It was brilliant. It’s probably not something you dream about when you are younger. Captaining Ireland is probably something that is way out of my league of what I thought I could do when I was younger.
“When you see the calibre of players that have never captained their country I think it is very special for me.
The former Ardscoil Rís captain was asked what will be going through his head as he leads his Ireland teammates out onto the pitch to face Georgia and his response was an unexpected one.
He answered “Firstly I hope the mascot isn’t taller than me like the (Ireland) A game.”
The Limerick native’s first taste of international captaincy came when the Ireland A team faced the All Black XV in the RDS Arena in 2022.
An image of him leading the team out went viral as the mascot was taller than the Ireland A captain.
The 5,5 star will be hoping for a different result in Tbilisi as they ran out 47-19 losers and he is also hoping for a shorter mascot.
Casey added: “I’ll be massively proud, it’s going to be a huge occasion obviously for my family and all the people that have put a lot of time into me.
“It will be a huge honour to lead out my country for the first time and I’ll be hoping to put my best foot forward.”
