Pool D/Ireland v Argentina: Gerry Thornleyon the scrumhalf's long and grinding road to starting for Ireland in crunch World Cup games

He's self-confident without being arrogant. He's an intelligent lad and a clever reader of the game. He's not shy, apparently, of giving his tuppenceworth if he feels it's relevant. He's thoughtful and clearly driven.

There's an intensity in his eyes and while he may be only 5ft 8ins and 12st 8lbs in a modern game filled with behemoths, those qualities and his speed have made him the best new scrumhalf on the Ireland scene since Peter Stringer's emergence eight years ago. Eoin Reddan has earned where he is today - and there's more to come.

At almost 27, he cannot be called an overnight sensation. It's taken him a while to get here and he's had to take a demanding, circuitous route. But it's the last two years at Wasps which have elevated him to where he is now, starting for Ireland in crunch, back-to-back World Cup matches.

The resilience he had built up in two largely unfulfilling years at Munster stood to him at Wasps. As in Munster, he was trying too hard. It took a simple but hugely significant observation by the defensive coach, Shaun Edwards, to trigger Reddan's emergence as the best scrumhalf in the Premiership.

"I don't how or why, but he could see I was trying too hard. He said: 'I want you to just go out and play like you're kicking the ball around on a Sunday. Just relax'. And I was thinking, 'Jesus, this is harsh. There's going to be 25,000 people there'. But I sat down and thought, 'right, I have tried this for two years now to no avail, I may as well try something new . . . I had something in my head that I needed something new . . . where am I going wrong? Is it the approach or what?' And it just felt so much more enjoyable."

He needed to be more relaxed to see what was going on around him in the hub of the team.

"I needed to build on that, but that was definitely where it started. There was definitely a change in me towards the 80 minutes itself. I don't know if it's the same for everyone. I'm probably getting a bit in-depth, but from my point of view it worked for me. I was trying too hard in every game."

He's a bit of a Londoner now. Phrases like "to be fair", "in fairness" and "at the end of the day" pepper his conversation, though he was honed in Limerick and like his brothers, Reddan spent a few formative summers on French exchanges in Biarritz (twice), Normandy and Paris.

"I wouldn't know as much as I used to know. I get around, I'm all right. I struggle with the French papers."

He is the second-youngest of five boys of what is very much a rugby family.

His eldest brother, Donal, is a consultant based in Galway, while his father, Dominic, a winger, played for Connacht, as did Diarmaid, Alan and Eoin himself. Younger brother Cian, a centre, has played for Munster Schools and under-20s but is recovering from a knee operation

"At the same time Dad never put pressure on us to play rugby. Like, I played soccer until I was 12 or 13; I refused to play rugby. He was never the one to be pushing me. He just liked me out playing any sport."

That said, be it the back garden with his dad, or the corridor with Cian, he was always passing and catching rugby balls.

Diarmaid, also a scrumhalf, won a schools senior cup medal with Clongowes, while Alan, a centre, won two with Crescent Comprehensive, where Eoin had less luck. Like his father and Diarmaid and Alan, the younger Reddan took up the familial Munster-Connacht route. It was one of the best career decisions he made.

Two seasons on Old Crescent's first team were another invaluable part of his learning curve, even scoring the late equalising try away to Blackrock which earned Crescent the 20-20 draw they needed to clinch promotion, before relegation followed.

Gerry Kelly, the Connacht CEO, had contacted him about taking up a part-time contract a year before, but Reddan was initially reluctant to hinder his college studies before agreeing to combine accountancy and finance in UL with a part-time Connacht contract.

"Steph (Nel) and Gerry never made it an issue for me. I remember leaving an exam 30 minutes early to get a flight from Dublin to one of the last Celtic League games Pontypridd played. I owe Connacht a lot for giving me my break. I made the Ireland under-21 team and it worked out really well."

His rugby education benefited from playing inside the vastly experienced Eric Elwood, a veritable lecturer in halfback play.

"It was great to play with an outhalf who knew what was required from a nine at the highest level.

"So I knew if he was happy with me I was going in the right direction. I certainly knew if he wasn't happy with me," Reddan says with a wry smile.

Like Jerry Flannery, he was given every incentive to return to Munster by the Sword of Damocles which hung over Connacht at the time.

"To be honest, that was the main factor. We were marching in Dublin one week and I had Munster on the phone next week. It wasn't a reflection on Connacht, it was like 'Jesus, what's going on here?' We certainly had our backs to the wall.

"We were playing our last game and it really could have been our last game ever. We played some good rugby under pressure."

His dream had always been to play for Munster. "That was all I ever wanted."

Reddan never uses the word "frustrating" to describe his time there. "The way I look at it, in the long run, what I learned from Munster is it helped me no end in regard to not getting picked.

"You have to give yourself the best chance of being picked every week, no matter how ridiculous it seems."

Warren Gatland recommended him to Wasps in 2006, and Edwards was also mustard keen on him.

"I couldn't believe Wasps were interested in me, but would I have gone to Leeds? I don't think I would have. I think if your ambition is to play for Ireland, you need to go somewhere where if you win everybody knows about it."

Reddan played as many games as Matt Dawson in his first season, ultimately starting away to Toulouse, in the Powergen Cup final and in the Premiership play-offs; a huge boost to his self-belief. The lippy England World Cup winner and two-time Lions Test scrumhalf would generally be perceived as a cantankerous little so and so.

"Of course he is; that's what scrumhalves are. That's half the job. He often said to me, and it's very valid, 'This isn't a popularity contest. Cut people down and get on with it. The most important thing is you get where you want to be and then you're judged on everything'. His point was you're going to be judged on your environment so you may as well control it."

Last season Reddan became much more of an influential playmaker for Wasps, injecting the tempo into their game with quick taps or maintaining it with his quick decision-making around the fringes, as was abundantly evident in his virtuoso two-try performance against Leinster.

It helped save Wasps' season, for they want on to win the Heineken European Cup with victories over Northampton and Leicester. "We got slashed by Leicester in the league three weeks before we played them in the final and the belief came from Lawrence (Dallaglio) straight away: 'We'll get them in three weeks.'

"The first time you hear it you're like 'well, hopefully', and then by the end of it you're thinking 'yeah, we're going to get these guys'. He's a very inspirational character still."

Despite being two years in the Munster squad, and latterly two years in the Ireland squad, incredibly last Friday night's game was his first start with Ronan O'Gara. But he doesn't feel an established partnership is essential.

"I disagree slightly. I think that can become a bit of a crutch. You need to be able to play with whoever you're with."

And, as he says, it's not as if they're complete strangers.

It comes as no surprise that Reddan sounds a good deal more positive than some of his mentally battered team-mates about the possibility of a miracle tomorrow.

"At the end of the day, we're one win away from a World Cup quarter-final. I know how a game can go for you if you crank it up at the right time. You just have to go out and try to win the game. That has to be the first thing, and then you could get two tries in the last five minutes.

"We've got plenty of speedsters. It could come from a turnover, it could come from a tackle. A try from defence would be nice as well. We've just got to get into a mindset where everybody believes it could happen."

Reddan brings a freshness that, increasingly, this team appears to need.