With Edel McMahon rested, Sam Monaghan will have sole possession of the Irish captaincy this week for Sunday's Rugby World Cup Pool C meeting with Spain.
Linda Djougang, however, will likely have the honour of leading the teams out at Franklin’s Gardens, as she joins an exclusive club in Irish women’s rugby.
The tighthead prop will become the 15th woman to play 50 times for Ireland this weekend, a haul of caps that hasn’t been reached by anyone since Nora Stapleton in 2017.
From googling 'What is rugby?' when she took her first steps into tag rugby around 10 years ago, the 29-year-old is now one of Ireland’s most important players.
She’s played under three different Ireland head coaches – Adam Griggs, Greg McWilliams and now Scott Bemand - and each one has seen her as indispensable.
That’s illustrated by her race to the half-century. Her 50 caps will have come in a span of 51 Ireland internationals. The only game she’s missed came away to Italy in 2019, two games into her Test career.
"To be honest, when I started rugby, I never dreamed of this," Djougang (above) said, after being named in the team ahead of her 50th cap.
"It's even beyond a dream because I never really imagined that I reached this milestone. Every game, every jersey. I just tried to do my best."
Her story, and her journey through rugby, has been told, but it’s worth a reminder.
It’s 20 years ago this month that she moved to Dublin from Cameroon to live with her father, while her mother stayed behind, and after taking up tag rugby to make friends at work, aged 19, she advanced to the full game when she was studying nursing at Trinity College, before making her Leinster debut in 2018, and, within a few months, Ireland.
She may not have been playing rugby for as long as some of her team-mates, but she’s the most experienced of this Irish side in terms of international rugby, with Clíodhna Moloney-MacDonald the next in line to hit the half-century, which she could do at this tournament if Ireland advance beyond the quarter-final.
Djougang’s importance to Ireland can be illustrated in the minutes she plays. Until last year, it would have been common for her to flip from tighthead to loosehead during games, depending on where Ireland were feeling pressure at the scrum.
And even as depth has grown in that position, she routinely plays beyond 70 minutes, similar to Andrew Porter’s heavy workload in the men’s team.
Her place in the starting team has never been in doubt, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.
"I don't think that there's one moment I ever felt really ‘comfortable’. I never want to feel like I settle or comfortable.
"I always train like I'm on the bench and I want to get on the starting team, and that's what I always do, and we always continue to do. It's nice to be reminded of your achievement, because I don't really tend to look at it.
"I always train like I want more. I demand more of myself, and I constantly demand, ‘what can I do better?’
"I'm just having fun. I'm playing. I might think, when you're less stressed, and you tend to think less and tend to play more."
It’s no coincidence that Djougang’s game has gone to a higher level since she took a career-break from nursing to become a full-time professional in the IRFU system.
Given her relatively late arrival into the game, she has no plans to rest on the achievement.
"I say to the girls, especially with my position, I'm so young as a prop, even though I'm going to 50 [caps], I feel like I learned how to prop on the big stage.
"I first started popping three days before my first cap [for Leinster]. So I feel like I learned my graph on the pitch. For me, to even get a 50th cap, and I still feel so young, in my position age, I'm constantly learning."
And the prop expects quite a few more team-mates to be hitting the 50-cap mark in the years to come.
"I inspire myself to even reach this milestone, it shows me what I'm capable of and what that is just is limitless.
"So for me, it even pushed me to want more, and I hope that young girls, even my team-mates, can see that. That we can get there, that they can look at me and look at this achievement and want it for themselves.
"And I hope they do want it for themselves, because I see so much potential in this group, and I know that they will go and I want them to go beyond 50 [caps]
"I want them to hit the 100 if they can. It just shows that you know what this dream is, limitless. Just go for it.
"It scares me to this day, and even when I hear about the 50th cap, I'm scared. I'm scared because it's never something that I ever dreamt of. But if it doesn't scare you, then why do it?
"So for me, I tap myself on the back, ‘well done you’. Sometimes I do forget to celebrate because I constantly feel like you're constantly chasing and you forget how much you have achieved.
"It's hard. And, yeah, I just want to just make people proud."
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