‘It hurt me a lot, it definitely fuels me’: Joey Carbery driven to rejoin Ireland squad

Joey Carbery turns 31 this Sunday. This week 10 years ago he celebrated his 21st with the Irish squad in Chicago and went on to make his debut off the bench, playing the last quarter and converting Robbie Henshaw’s try in Ireland’s historic first win over the All Blacks in 111 years of trying.

“You actually can’t write it better,” he says, smiling broadly as if almost still in wonderment himself. “If someone asked me as a five-year-old: ‘What’s your first international cap?’ That would have been it. I still look back on it as a bit of a pinch-me moment.”