The arrival of Oli Jager into the Ireland set-up has been "unbelievably helpful", according to Rónan Kelleher.
The 28-year-old tighthead prop joined Munster from Crusaders in December and came on board with years of Super Rugby experience.
After playing schools rugby with Blackrock College alongside Garry Ringrose, Nick Timoney and Jeremy Loughman, Jager took a path less travelled and left Ireland for the Land of the Long White Cloud.
He soon rose through the ranks in New Zealand and made over 50 senior appearances over a six-year spell, helping the Crusaders to multiple Super Rugby titles.
An All Blacks cap was the goal back then but injury prevented him from getting on the stepping stone after call-ups to the development squads in 2022 and 2023.
Initially included as a "training panellist" when Andy Farrell named his Six Nations squad last month, Jager trained with Ireland in Portugal before returning to Munster ahead of the France game.
His old team were in Cork to take on Munster in a friendly last weekend but a "minor knock" ruled him out of contention.
However, Jager (above) was officially added to the squad for Sunday's Guinness Six Nations game against Italy (3pm).
It was a fact that attack coach Mike Catt wasn’t fully sure about when he spoke to reporters on Wednesday before a media officer confirmed that Jager is in the mix for selection.
And hooker Kelleher, who came off the bench and scored a try in the 38-17 win over France, is delighted with his new front row companion.
"A really strong scrummager, he has fitted into the group brilliantly," said the 26-year-old.
"Great fella, he has loads of experience from playing down in the southern hemisphere.
"I’ve been tapping into that and getting that perspective on the game."
"It’s unbelievably helpful, even just to get that different perspective and how they do things down there.
"He has been really useful as a resource."
Farrell will name his match-day squad on Friday.
Meanwhile, Kelleher (above), who has 27 caps and started for Ireland against South Africa at the World Cup, spoke about the improved line-out against France, which saw a 13 from 13 return.
"Its always great to get a couple of maul tries," he said.
"From our perspective, there wasn’t anything major that needed to change, just a few small tweaks, and we took a step in the right direction there and that was good.
"Obviously, as a forward pack, we were delighted we managed to get over.
"It was more like to tweak the small details like, for example, the lineout lift and maybe the lineout throw.
"It’s all about the timing and it clicked last weekend but there was no major revamp, more just keep doing what we were doing."
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