No time to reflect as Jack Crowley closes breakthrough year

In a couple of weeks' time, when Ireland are home from South Africa and Jack Crowley is winding down on the golf course, the out-half is going to reflect on a long and formative season.

This afternoon's second Test against the Springboks will be a 32nd game of the campaign for the Munster man, the highest number of games for any Irish player across the rugby calendar. Of that tally, 13 of those games will have been Test caps.

The 24-year-old now feels established in his position as the first choice Munster and Ireland out-half.

When he walked into Ireland’s World Cup training camp 13 months ago, he couldn’t have hoped for more from a developmental point of view, and he admits with the games coming so soon after each other, he’s yet to sit down and look back on where he started, and how far he’s come.

"There hasn’t been time [to reflect]," he says, when asked about a breakthrough season on the international front.

"In a few weeks when things die down I might get an opportunity to look back and see areas that I do need to work on or areas that went well and I can focus on other areas."

The full review will be done by the Corkman over a well-earned summer break, but the best way to learn, he says, is through game time.

"You have to learn unbelievably quickly, whether it is a win or loss.

"You have to move on quickly because the next game is quickly coming upon you, and before you know it 80 minutes is over and you are moving on to the next one. It is a quick machine.

"It has been good, I am very lucky that I got the opportunity throughout the year to play as many minutes as I did. In previous years I would have been looking for more minutes and I got them this year.

"It wasn’t all pretty, it was all pretty, it wasn’t all perfect.