There's a very particular noise a rugby audience makes when they see a tight-five forward kicking a ball downfield.
It may pale in significance to a try being scored, or a jackal turnover on your own line, but there’s something about that guttural roar in a crowd that seems reserved for when someone with a low single-digit on their back instinctively hoofs it away from danger.
A prime example of that came in Leinster’s BKT United Rugby Championship win over the Ospreys a couple of weeks ago.
The province had been under pressure in their own half, leading 21-14 after 32 minutes when Caelan Doris won a turnover, popping back to Ryan Baird, who in turn offloaded to Tadhg Furlong.
With an Ospreys defender coming in off his right shoulder, the Leinster tighthead quickly shifted the ball to his left, and cannoned a kick down to the Ospreys 22, to the delight of the Leinster supporters at the RDS. A rushed Ospreys clearance resulted in a big net gain for the province.
Furlong, left-handed but two-footed according to the man himself, has always offered a little bit more than the classic tighthead prop.
Earlier in that game, his wide pass to the left wing set up Leinster’s opening try of the night, while in Irish colours we’ve grown used to seeing him pop up as a first receiver in the backline where he’s just as likely to barrel the ball into contact as he is to whip a pass out the back door.
The days of prop forwards being nothing more than scrummagers, maulers and ruckers have long gone from the game of rugby, and the 31-year-old has been at the front of those changes.
That kick against the Ospreys, or his delicate one-handed offload in the lead-up to their third try a week before that against Northampton Saints are the highlights that catch the eye, but they’re just the garnish on the meat and veg of tight-forward play.
"Rugby, with me, is about trying to work as hard as I can and deliver the basics as best as I can.
"Rugby’s changed a massive amount I would say, throughout my time playing it. People used to always think carrying was the only part of my game, where I think I’m a much, much more rounded rugby player now.
"I think the modern game demands scrum, defence, high pressure, the kicking game has come so in vogue both in attack and defence, attack, on top of ruck stuff.
"The demands of a front row forward have become more than it’s ever been. You have to be a master of all the rest before you can find yourself doing the flashy stuff."
Even aside from "the flashy stuff", the 76-cap Ireland international has looked back to his best form in 2024, with a renewed explosiveness to his ball-carrying and tackling throughout the Six Nations championship, as well as Leinster’s knockout games in the Champions Cup.
Furlong is bashful about his supposed return to form, but does admit an injury-free run has gone a long way.
After two seasons where he was dealing with recurring calf and ankle injuries, the tighthead has had no such problems in recent months.
"I went through the ringer there a small bit," he adds. "Some of it’s not always bad enough to miss games, so you play through a lot of stuff. It’s not an excuse, it’s just the way of the game we play, if you can play you can play, that’s it.
"I’m lucky, touch wood now, it’s the first final or end of season game I’ve come into in a long time with a clean bill of health.
"It definitely helps, there’s no point lying, it does help."
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium may be a novel setting for this year’s Champions Cup final, but the occasion is a familiar one.
This will be Leinster’s eighth Champions Cup final appearance, and Furlong’s fifth, with the Wexford man winning the title with Leinster in 2018, before they lost out to Saracens in 2019, and La Rochelle in the 2022 and 2023 deciders.
Getting back to the final year after year comes at a personal cost.
"It's where we want to be but it’s trying to make it the most enjoyable week of your life.
"You block out everything. It’s kind of a selfish week in some regards.
"What really matters is the rugby and spending the proper time away to switch off and block out a lot of the outside noise. It’s not easy, because you meet people in the street, you get texts from home.
"It’s a big deal for the province and our people, and in some ways you have to be a little bit ignorant to all of that and try focus on what you can do.
"Hey, it would be ten times worse if you weren't here, it would be ten times worse if people weren't behind you, but we feel like they are. That means a massive amount, that connection," Furlong says.
The elephant in the room is Leinster’s recent finals record. Having won their first four trips to the decider, the province have lost their last three, and they head to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium looking to avoid finals heartbreak for the third season in a row.
If there’s a difference between this year and the previous two, it’s that their route to the final hasn’t been as dominant. The four-time champions have won every game they’ve played, but haven’t breezed through the competition like they did in other years.
Their season began with a tense win away to La Rochelle in France, and while they blitzed the defending champions in the quarter-final, they were pushed much closer by Leicester Tigers and Northampton Saints in the last-16 and semi-final respectively, which Furlong hopes has given them a harder shell.
"That helps, knowing we can do it under pressure.
"There’s definitely parts we can improve on from those games. It feels that way. It feels like we’ve been in tight arm-wrestles, having to navigate our way through muddy waters at times. Sometimes when you get a big semi-final win, you maybe gloss over some of the stuff that’s important for a final. It definitely feels like we’ve been learning along the way, as well as winning."
For a familiar stage, Leinster have familiar opponents in Toulouse, who they defeated in the last two semi-finals, as well as in 2019.
And Furlong is looking forward to locking horns with the French side’s loosehead Cyril Baille, a player he’s been cheek by jowl with several times, both at Champions Cup and international level.
"I’ve had my ding-dong battles with him over the years," he says of the Toulouse loosehead.
"We didn't scrummage well in France in the Six Nations just gone against their front row, Cyril was loosehead there. We’ve come a long way, we didn't properly set up right on the day, and it came off the back of a few calls against us which was fair enough.
"I do enjoy it. It’s never a straight line either, scrummaging. There’s always a story of a scrum as the game goes on, and how you adapt. One team is in the ascendancy, and the other team changes, and it’s trying to get ahead of those curves before they come and navigate your way through it.
"He’s not just a scrummager for them. Like all Toulouse players, he’s well able to win a first contact, able to offload ball, play ball, pick and go around the tight exchanges when the game gets tight."
Leinster didn’t see the best version of Toulouse in either of their semi-final meetings in the last two years, and Furlong insists they aren't putting much stock into their recent meetings.
Similarly, he believes the province aren’t dwelling on their own final heartbreak of the last two years, as they look to put a record-equalling fifth star on their jersey
"It’s all carrot, there’s no stick.
"Of course hurt drives you, and it’s a motivation, but it’s not the be all and end all. It doesn't entitle you to do anything.
"You want to play well, and just because you’ve lost two finals on the bounce, it doesn't mean nothing, it doesn't grant you any golden ticket to say this is your time.
"You have to make it happen."
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