World Cup debut next step on remarkable rise of Joe McCarthy

Joe McCarthy isn't a World Cup bolter in the traditional sense, but in a squad as settled as Andy Farrell’s, he’s as close to a bolter as you could be.

It’s not quite Conor Murray in 2011 - just six months separated the scrum-half's first start for Munster and his World Cup debut – but the second row has played his way into the Irish line-up for the opening game of the 2023 Rugby World Cup against Romania.

He only turned 22 in March, but the Leinster man comes in at a powerful 6ft 6in and 119kg according to Irish Rugby. Without getting too technical, Tadhg Furlong describes him as "a big auld man".

It’s just over 19 months since he made his Leinster debut, a 29-27 defeat to Cardiff in the BKT United Rugby Championship, but it was a game in which the then-20-year-old left his mark.

Within a few weeks he’d been called in by Farrell to train with the Irish squad for a few days, an unofficial call-up which was soon followed by an official call-up for the summer tour of New Zealand.

In between those stints in international camp, he quickly established himself in the Leinster squad, playing Champions Cup rugby and then going on to feature for the Irish midweek squad in their tour games against the Maori All Blacks.

A few months before all of that only those with a forensic knowledge of Leinster’s talent pipeline, or an All-Ireland League devotee, would have known who Joe McCarthy was.

He was Irish rugby’s best kept secret, mainly due to Covid-19. Having come through at Blackrock College, McCarthy moved on to Trinity College and played AIL for Dublin University while training with the Leinster sub-academy and then academy.

Unlike his younger brother Paddy, who starred for the Ireland Under-20s on their run to a Grand Slam title and