Keeping up appearances,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
Granted 'passed some time' would be more accurate than 'did some time,' but the answer is still the same. Fergus McFadden.
How much time? A few minutes actually. And what was Leinster's impressive young centre, who is a decent bet for an Ireland cap in the autumn, doing chilling with one of the most evil men on the planet?
Well,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], McFadden's dad used to work for the UN and for more than a dozen years he was running the show in that big house in Holland's premier seaside resort. And from time to time his son would come to visit. And when he would drop by, the young McFadden would sometimes use the gym at the facility.
"I used to do a bit of work in there actually with one of the prisoners," he says. "They're more inmates than prisoners because they're being detained until their trial is over, so it's a remand centre. So, still innocent until proven guilty. Though in Milosevic's case it was only a matter of time before he was proven guilty. And he was obviously representing himself in court and then he got ill and died. He was probably the most high profile in there. There were other fairly highprofile lads who would have been at the centre of the Yugoslav war."
So what did he talk about with Slobs the day their paths crossed?
"I would have known him from the news but I was about 15 at the time so I wouldn't have really known the ins and outs, or what a commanding figure he was. My dad was running the whole prison so he did know who I was. All we talked about was tennis and squash that's what I was playing that summer. He talked to me about how I was getting on because I was getting tennis lessons. Very general chit chat. Chatting away in his suit and his Nike Air pumps. He was wearing Nike Air pumps with a suit."
Hmm. Not only a war criminal but a fashion criminal as well.
McFadden is suitably attired in shorts and tshirt,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and footwear which is on the same wavelength. He gives the impression however that his coach Michael Cheika and himself are not, at that specific moment, tuned into the same station. It's Wednesday lunchtime and Leinster training has wrapped up a short while earlier. McFadden had found himself running interference with the replacements instead of stepping it out with the starting lineup ahead of Friday night's Magners League game in Swansea.
"I'm not over the moon about not starting this weekend," he admits. "I don't think I did a whole lot wrong over the last couple of weeks but you've got to respect the coach's decision."
This is a good thing. Not that he respects the coach's decision, but that he should be far enough along in his career to be peeved about being left out when Brian O'Driscoll, behind whom he has been waiting in line, is not available until next weekend. This is McFadden's third season with Leinster and he has looked increasingly comfortable with the responsibility of starting league games and contributing to the cause when the brightest star is not there. If there wasn't a slight deviation in his septum you'd be concerned. And so, you imagine, would Cheika.
Roll on to Friday night against the Ospreys and McFadden again made a very positive impression. Limited to a run in the last quarter he did everything right, and won the turnover for Jonny Sexton's insurance penalty with a great steal at a tackle. When you're restricted to small windows like that, it's as hard not to try and save the world when you come on as simply to do your job well. He's good at the small things.
Fergus McFadden's progress has been sequential. Most seasons each of Leinster, Munster and Ulster have some kid who comes into their academy with a stellar reputation, if they haven't bypassed that stage altogether. This fella came in under the radar. His effectiveness as a schools player got him a scholarship to UCD, and he served his time with them in the AIB League while hitched to Leinster's subacademy group.
Initially, the scholarship was attractive mostly for the accommodation and pocket money that went with it while he was pursuing a degree in economics and geography. Then he started moving through the gears and took seriously the idea of rugby as a career.
"I saw guys like Rob (Kearney) who was a year ahead of me in Clongowes, and I'd played cup rugby with him, and I saw him progressing so quickly and doing so well I thought: 'Jeez, I wouldn't mind playing rugby as a profession myself.' I had one eye on it at that stage, in my second year in college. The next thing I was offered a couple of years in the academy and after the first year I was offered a development (contract) and now I'm signed on for two years so all going well."
Oddly enough each of his three seasons have finished in international duty with Ireland A. Year one, 2006/07, no more than a bit of bench time for Leinster but still he was called in as a late replacement in the Churchill Cup; year two he got two league starts with the province and runs off the bench with the A side; and then last season he featured eight times in blue and rounded it off as a key player for the A's in Colorado a few months back. Indeed he got the MVP award there. Strangely,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], this featured a statuesque trophy of a man in long boots and a cowboy hat with a rifle in his outstretched arm. "Quite the thing," he says.
Unwisely, he entrusted it to a teammate to take home for him while he went to Las Vegas. And now the hunter looks like he's staggering home after a long night on a high stool. Vegas was good though: on the roulette table, he recouped the cost of the holiday. So in a memorable few weeks he was first choice in all three games,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], culminating in the final win over England Saxons, and came home in profit.
"That was the nice thing about the Churchill I wasn't looking over my shoulder getting ready for the next week. It was a bit easier. More of a laidback approach. Behind the scenes not staffwise or from a coaching point of view but playerwise the Churchill (in previous seasons) was kind of the equivalent of a tour, not a competition, because it was coming at the end of the season. Churchill Cup: you've got three games does it mean that much if you win it? Like, your season's gone and a lot of lads just want to get away on their holidays and are thinking that.
"So when Deccie (Kidney) and the rest came on board it was more of a wakeup call. They were there to work on the strength in depth for Ireland,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]. It was very encouraging and certainly I found it that way. The whole setup was definitely a lot more professional than it had been in the previous couple of years."
Kidney has a good handle on who McFadden is and what he can do. Initially, the Ireland coach wanted to bring him for the Tests against Canada and USA but understood fully that the centre was tied into being 23rd man for Leinster in their semifinal and final European games. Instead Kidney got full value out of him in the Churchill, as a tryscoring attacker and an aggressive defender and a decent goalkicker.
Two weeks ago against the Scarlets, McFadden's performance in attack was striking in that every time he got the ball he made ground, either through direct running or good footwork. Every time. It was a remarkably high return on the possession invested in him. His main memory however is being implicated in the Scarlets' first try.
"I did a couple of good things but I beat myself up for about a week after that game over small things I did wrong. I suppose I set pretty high standards for myself because of the environment I'm in. I'm up against a couple of the best centres around and there's good strength in depth."
So when there is a slowburning start to the season from the neon names, the likes of McFadden are itching to make the most of the opportunity. For example, last season it was game 10 before he got a chance three runs in a row then while the November internationals hogged the stars and when the window closes again, it's easy to feel you're on the outside looking in.
"Motivationwise it's tough because you're seeing the first team and they could be doing quite well and you really don't feel part of it when you're not playing the games," he says. "Fair enough, you're in the squad and training with them each day but at times you're just as far away from it as someone in the 50th row of the RDS. I suppose it's about keeping your motivation as much as possible and waiting for your chance, which is a hard thing to do. For me, it's probably easier because I'm reasonably young. I wouldn't count myself as one of the younger lads in the squad (he's 23) but there are older lads I won't mention names but they're in that position a lot of the time during the year. It's a hard position to be in. Very tough. You just run with it if that's the lifestyle you're going for."
We are two years out this month from our opening pool game of RWC 2011, probably against USA, in New Plymouth. Declan Kidney's plan to build a squad of interchangeable players for that World Cup started in last season's Six Nations when he rotated four players for the Scotland game. It continued in the summer with the senior management team going to the Churchill Cup. November offers further scope for movement, and Fiji in particular is an opportunity to move a few players further up the ladder.
"Obviously the aim is to go to that World Cup in the best position to win it because if we're the best team at the moment in the northern hemisphere, why can't we challenge for a World Cup in two years?" McFadden asks.
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