Munster Rugby's Oli Jager 'over the moon' to make Ireland Six Nations debut

Munster Rugby prop Oli Jager said he was ‘over the moon’ to earn his first Ireland cap in Saturday's comprehensive 31-7 bonus point victory over Wales in the Six Nations Championship at the Aviva Stadium.

Twenty eight-year-old Jager, who joined Munster from the Crusaders in New Zealand in December on a three and a half year deal. The tighthead prop played for the Ireland U18 Schools team in 2013 before moving to Canterbury in New Zealand at the age of 17.

Jager made his test debut for Ireland off the bench at Lansdowne Road on Saturday after impressing in his six appearances for Munster to date.

Following his Ireland test debut on Saturday, Jager told Leader Sport: “It’s a hard thing to put into words. Obviously proud. Its such a wonderful feeling to get that first cap and against such a great team in Wales and in the Six Nations too. I have no words to describe it. I’m over the moon.”

Jager admitted he felt emotional about the achievement of pulling on the green jersey.

“I had been just putting it off for the whole week, just playing it down so I don’t get too nervous before the game. I felt it when the anthems came on and I just managed to push it back down. I didn’t shed a tear but I definitely got a bit more emotional.”

The tighthead prop admitted the lengthy journey he had gone through on his way to representing Ireland at the highest level had contributed to the emotion.

“It definitely has something to do with that because I have been out of Ireland for so long and the fact that I am home now and it has been a whirlwind couple of months.

"I’ve made my debut for Munster and now for Ireland so its been hard to get used to and get everything back into one place. Yeah, its definitely the journey I’ve been on and going from not getting into the academy when I came out of school to going to New Zealand to making the Crusaders academy, playing for Crusaders and eventually building up a reputation enough to come home. It all feels full circle.”

Jager admitted that there were times he thought that his chance to represent Ireland at senior level had passed.

“I’ll be honest, there probably was. There probably was a point where I was thinking I should have come home earlier and I should have done other things differently," Jager revealed

"It definitely came to a point where I thought the boat had sailed and I would just have to live with that. Thankfully that wasn’t the case.”