LONG READ Leinster look to ‘Tommaso’ as Tadhg Furlong battles to make it to the World Cup

URC winners’ medal draped around his neck, Jack Conan leaned back in his chair as he fielded questions from reporters, at Aviva Stadium. A question about Tom Clarkson drew the Leinster captain forward.

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“Tommy was brilliant,” Conan began. “He was fantastic. You come up against the Bulls, who are renowned for their scrummaging, and he gave a great account of himself, there. He is someone that has grown immensely, throughout the season, and he is getting his just rewards for it – getting capped by Ireland, and everything else.”

2024/25 was the season everything clicked for Clarkson. He made 19 appearances for Leinster, including eight consecutive starts at tighthead, as the province ended a three-year trophy wait. He also made his Ireland debut against Argentina, collected seven more Test caps and was a late call-up for the British & Irish Lions.

Last July, Clarkson scored his first try in a green jersey, against Portugal, in what he thought would be his last game of the season. That night, as he was out for drinks with Ireland teammates, the 26-year-old got a message from Andy Farrell, the Lions head coach.

“The message was like, ‘Ring me when you’re awake’,” he recalled, not long after touching down in Australia. “So I said, ‘Oh yeah, grand’. Then Paulie [O’Connell] rang me and was like, ‘Ring him right now!’ So, yeah, I had to just compose myself and go outside. I told Jack Boyle and then just legged it.”

Clarkson, Jamie George and Jamie Osborne, his Leinster and Ireland teammate, were late additions to Farrell’s touring squad. All three would feature in the Lions’ victory over First Nations & Pasifika XV. There were still two weeks left on the tour, with all the midweek games ticked off, but Farrell asked Clarkson to stick around, and highlighted him for praise after his Lions bow.

“It wasn’t a kind of ‘nepo’ selection if you’d call it that,” Clarkson remarked, at the time, before adding, “I benefited from Tadhg [Furlong] being injured at the end of the season, but I’d like to think I took the opportunity.”

As recently as January 2024, Clarkson was lining out for Blackrock in Division 1B of the All-Ireland League. He was part of Noel McNamara’s Ireland U20 side that won a Six Nations Grand Slam, in 2019. Clarkson described himself, in a recent Sunday Times interview, as being ‘small and weak’ at 112kgs, in his U20s guise. In the intervening years, he has put on considerable timber, now pressing 125kgs on the scale.

Clarkson was approached by Italy to check whether he would like to play international rugby. His full name is Tommaso Clarkson, and his mother, Nina, hails from the town of Casalattico, just beyond the Lazio region of Rome.

He made his Leinster debut in August 2019, at the age of just 19, but it took four more years before he played a Champions Cup match for the province. Even when Andrew Porter, in 2021, switched from tighthead to loosehead, Clarkson was in and out of the squad. Michael Ala’alatoa arrived from Clermont and hoovered up big game minutes. Injuries also held Clarkson back and confidence dipped.
For the 2022 Champions Cup Final, in Marseille, the prop travelled over with other fringe members of the squad and, from early in the day, was on the beers. “We ended up on a pub-crawl to the stadium,” he recalled. Powerless to help, bar some bellows from the stands. The following year, he was 24th man when La Rochelle backed up that Stade Velodrome triumph by retaining their title and snapping Leinster hearts, all over again.

In October 2023, Clarkson was approached by Italy to check whether he would like to play international rugby. His full name is Tommaso Clarkson, and his mother, Nina, hails from the town of Casalattico, just beyond the Lazio region of Rome. “Italy came looking for me,” he told RTÉ, “but I’d just signed a new contract with Leinster. I thought it could be open at some point down the line.”

With Furlong on duty at the 2023 World Cup, Clarkson got a decent crack at Leinster’s No.3 jersey and acquitted himself well. When the business end of the season rolled around, Clarkson was fit, and in decent form, but Leinster opted for Furlong and French prop, Rabah Slimani. Last season, as positive as it was, he also missed out on selection for the Champions Cup knock-out stages.

This season, buoyed by that clutch of Ireland caps and his Lions call-up, Tommaso Clarkson has kicked on. He is playing with greater assurance and belief in his abilities to provide big moments. His passing has significantly improved and he is more mobile, about the park. His first five seasons with the senior squad brought him 43 Leinster appearances. In the past two seasons, for Leinster and Ireland, he has packed down in 50 matches. With that experience, we are starting to see that raw potential, first witnessed seven years ago, being realised.

Clarkson was one of three Leinster players, along with Conan and Jamison Gibson-Park, put on another jaw-dropping Louis Bielle-Biarrey highlight reel moment, in the recent Champions Cup Final loss to Bordeaux. Looking back on that moment, the first of the winger’s two first-half tries, the sheer sprinting effort Clarkson puts in was mightily impressive. It was his break-neck, 40-metre hoist across the pitch that forced Bielle-Biarrey to step inside. That he was stepped – unable to slam the brakes on – is no slight on the tighthead. He did his job, it was just that Bielle-Biarrey had the skill, and wherewithal, to then jink inside Gibson-Park and ride a Conan tackle, before scoring.

Former Munster and Ireland lock Donncha O’Callaghan queried, on The Offload podcast, whether Leinster had done wrong by Furlong, in starting Clarkson ahead of him, against Bordeaux. “That one is disrespectful,” he proclaimed. “It really pissed me off.” The young tighthead had a decent game, though, and was one of few players to emerge with much credit from that chastening day.

As everything shook out, Furlong may well have been carrying an ailment into that final. He was named to start the URC quarter final against Lions, then withdrawn at late notice due to a calf injury.

Furlong’s time at the top is coming to an end. He has suffered a range of back, hamstring, ankle and calf issues, over the years. He was carefully managed in the lead-up to that Lions tour, missing the URC playoffs, but started all three Lions Tests, in Australia.

Clarkson was in from the start, with Slimani drafted onto the bench. When Leo Cullen named his team for the semi-final against Stormers, it was the same selection, with Furlong still out.

“Tom absolutely stepped up, last season,” said Leo Cullen, after naming a Leinster team that sees Gibson-Park return, Sam Prendergast retain the 10 jersey and Max Deegan at blindside. “You saw it in that Bulls game, in particular, and how well he did against Glasgow, and Scarlets before that. T.C has been brilliant, and he is getting better, all the time. I’ve been following his progress since he was much younger and, as a tighthead, you can just see him improving, all the time. Hopefully he goes well, again, at the weekend.”

Furlong’s time at the top is coming to an end. He has suffered a range of back, hamstring, ankle and calf issues, over the years. He was carefully managed in the lead-up to that Lions tour, missing the URC playoffs, but then started all three Lions Tests, in Australia. “The lack of training on this tour is great for my body because you come to the game fresh,” he noted, last summer. “Previously I would have had a lot of overload injuries. It’s nice to play rugby and get match-fit by playing rugby, two games a week.”

While the Wexford native has appeared in 19 games, for province and country, this season, he has logged just 471 minutes for Leinster. He turns 34, later this year, and will be nearing 35 when Ireland head back to Australia for the World Cup. In truth, the mission will be just to get him to the tournament in the best working order, before he bows out of the game.

Interestingly, Tom O’Toole’s positive loosehead outings in the Six Nations, and the emergence of Jack Boyle and Paddy McCarthy, has created a positional switch dilemma. Andy Farrell may be tempted to move Porter back to tighthead, with one eye on that World Cup. Porter, of course, made the 2021 Lions squad as a tighthead [only to succumb to a foot injury]. Should he revert to tighthead, it may be Porter and Clarkson jousting for starter’s minutes, at Leinster and Ireland.

Last season was the making of Clarkson. Furlong was unable to lace up for the URC run-in and, as he noted, the younger tighthead grasped his opportunity.

Due to his involvement with the Lions, Clarkson missed out on Leinster’s season-opening 35-0 loss to Stormers, in Cape Town. André-Hugo Venter and Neethling Fouché were both in the Stormers front row, that day, as Leinster’s pack got mullered. Vernon Matongo was the starting loosehead, but first-choice Ntuthuko Mchunu has started the last five games, and gets the No.1 jersey for Saturday, in Dublin. Only three players from Leinster’s starting pack – Gus McCarthy, Diarmuid Mangan and Slimani – will be involved, this weekend.

Last season was the making of Clarkson. Furlong was unable to lace up for the URC run-in and, as he noted, the younger tighthead grasped his opportunity. He more than held his own against Scarlets and Glasgow, before finding another level as Bulls were ground down. If he can repeat that dose on Saturday, and beyond, that Ireland No.3 jersey may be his for the upcoming Nations Championship.