'The game suits me a bit more' - Patient approach starting to pay off for Calvin Nash

Last Saturday was a day to remember for Calvin Nash, although he didn't even realise it at the time.

The 25-year-old scored the first of his side's four tries in the 24-17 win against Connacht, his eighth for the province on his 40th appearance.

For the Limerick man, it was also his first time scoring for Munster at Thomond Park. Thankfully the wait wasn't playing on his mind.

"I actually didn't know that at the time," he laughed, after being congratulated on the Munster rite of passage.

"Someone said it to me over the weekend and I was like, 'I've definitely scored a try at Thomond Park, I have to have?'.

"It's class, and a bonus point win against Connacht to have done it. I was surprised with the stat!"

It speaks to a confident grounding that he hadn't been waiting for it to happen. Waiting has been a feature of his career to date.

A Munster Schools Senior Cup winner with Crescent College at the age of 16 in 2014, Nash had been a prodigious talent through the age-grades, and long marked down as a future Munster player.

Making his debut at the age of 19, and scoring his first try a few months after his 20th birthday against Zebre in November 2017, the Young Munster clubman continued to be a standout in his academy days, before an ankle injury limited him to just three appearances in the 2018/19 season.

And with Munster well-stocked in the back three with Keith Earls (below), Andrew Conway, Shane Daly and Mike Haley, even before the return of Simon Zebo in 2021, Nash says he's learned the value of patience.

"It's tough when you come out of school because a lot of time you back yourself, you're like, 'I'm good enough, I'm good enough, I need an opportunity', that kind of way, and I feel that can be frustrating sometime for young