Brendan Fanning: How Jamison Gibson-Park went from bit-part Leinster player to Ireland’s greatest scrum-half
Midway through Jamison Gibson-Park’s first season with Leinster we were wondering if he was going to take Luke McGrath’s place or end up holding his coat.
He had left Wellington to escape the shadow of TJ Perenara at the Hurricanes. Fair enough, Perenara blocked out a lot of light. He was bigger and stronger than Gibson-Park, a hard man to miss around the place, a physical battler who knew how to get over the line when it mattered. Perenara had been part of the All Blacks’ World Cup-winning squad in 2015. He was the man.