As part of the IRFU’s management programme, the Kildare native sat out last Saturday’s game in Parma.
A first defeat to Italian minnows Zebre puts Graham Rowntree’s men on the back foot early this season, drawing heavy criticism from leading former players in the media and a hefty amount of introspection in the team meetings that have been held since.
Beirne is back to lead the side team against Ospreys in Cork on Saturday and his presence, prsence, along with that of Peter O’Mahony and Jack Crowley, will help galvanise the team.
“We talk about standards in here and that’s one thing that you’re trying to do all the time, drive standards,” Beirne said.
“The onus is on us [experienced players] to drive those standards when you have a game like you did on the weekend, where we looked a bit flat defensively and things weren’t going our way. Even attack-wise we were leaving a lot of opportunities out there and going a bit off-script, they’re the things you have to address in those meetings. They don’t just come from me, they come from many people in the meeting and the discussion is had, we take it on board.
“It’s about learning from that now and making sure it doesn’t happen again this weekend. We’ve been training particularly well most of the time. The last two games, six points from two games, we’re not going to panic, particularly with how we started the season last year.
“We have a lot of room for improvement, particularly around defence; we’ve been uncharacteristic with how we’ve been playing the last number of years, how we’ve defended in the last two games, so I think there’s a big area . . . but we’ve also shown glimpses of what we can do as well.
“I’m not worried but I also recognise there’s a lot of work to do too.”
Captaincy is something that has come late to Beirne.
“I probably used to joke, ‘Imagine me being captain’ to some of the lads. I don’t think I necessarily would have been picturing being captain, especially in my earlier years,” he said.
“I don’t think speaking comes naturally to me in terms of . . . you talk about Pete being a natural leader, he’s incredible at making speeches, he’s incredible at gearing up lads, but I don’t think I’m going to be that captain.
“I have a bit of a different approach to it in terms of I won’t do as much talking. A lot of the other lads will be doing that and I’ll speak when I feel the need to speak but my approach will certainly be a little bit calmer and my best way is to try to lead by example on and off the field.
“So I’ll just be a bit of a calm presence around the place when I can and I suppose there are many types of leadership and I’ve learned a lot from Pete over the years by watching him lead, and hopefully I’ll be able to use some of his traits.
“I remember getting the call from Johann [van Graan] the first time I was given the captaincy and I was pretty nervous, but once I got into the game I realised it’s just a tag on your name.
“Even in today’s game half the time you don’t really need a captain, the ref’s not really listening to you anyway! I kind of enjoy that bit of pressure to make sure I was performing to a certain standard as well.”
This week, he must pull together a group that’s been getting it in the neck.
“The coaches have brought the messages and everyone knows it’s not acceptable, especially when you show the clips and they replay them a couple of times. You can feel in the room everyone knows that’s just not good enough and will say it,” he said.
“It might be another kick up the ass later in the week if we haven’t trained well but we’ve spoken about that level, that standard that we expect ourselves to be at and us being underneath that, so if we don’t start reaching that soon I can imagine those meetings won’t be as nice.
“You talk about the media coming at you, that’s just normal. When you’re not performing you’re going to get slated, aren’t you? And that’s just part of it.
“So it’s up to us to regroup. We had a poor game over the weekend, we have a massive opportunity to go to Cork and set things right and set a standard that we want to keep chasing.
“And it’s no different, you’re going to have bad weeks and I can guarantee you there’ll be another bad week during the year and we’ll be like, ‘Jesus, we need a kick up our ass’, and that’s just part of rugby.”
