The first thing you notice about Edwin Edogbo is just how bloody big he is.
There are taller players in Munster’s squad, there are heavier players, but everyone looks like a middleweight next to the Big Rig Edwin Edogbo in 2025.
At 6’5″ and 127kg, Edogbo is the heaviest Irish-qualified second row in the country with full senior minutes, and that alone makes him a unique prospect in a country that is crying out for what he brings by the tonne: tight power.
In the modern game, Edogbo’s profile is that of a massive tighthead lock, albeit one who has yet to grow into his already enormous frame fully, and you’d have to be an idiot not to see the potential in a player who brings that to the table.
The natural comparison to Edobo in Ireland has, naturally, been to Leinster’s Joe McCarthy. Whenever these two have met onfield, the results have usually been… explosive. Here’s a nice example of Edogbo stuffing McCarthy in contact one-on-one, behind the gainline for a dominant tackle.
Bang.
That’s what Edogbo does. He is Mr Physics. If you’re not in his weight class, and it’s a one-on-one collision, you stop when he does. Large elements of Edogbo’s game are still really raw, but that’s almost entirely down to his lack of experience. Joe McCarthy, at the same age, is a great example of how Edwin’s injury-racked early career has stalled elements of his development.
In total, since he was eligible for the U20s in 2021, Edogbo has missed approximately 36 months through a right Achilles rupture before he came into the Academy, a left Achilles tear during 2022/23, a second aggravation of that injury in December 2023, which he recovered from in Spring 2024, but missed most of the rest of that season as he scaled back up after a back niggle. He made an appearance for Munster A against the Connacht Eagles at the end of that season, where he looked like a senior pro thrown into a school game.
As I wrote in that piece;
In short, I think Edwin Edogbo has the potential to play for Ireland this year if he can stay fit and firing on the field. I think if he hadn’t been injured in that game against Leinster in December 2023, where he went toe to toe with Joe McCarthy, I think he’d already have 2/3 caps under his belt at the very least. You can never be sure of that when it comes to Farrell’s selection patterns, of course, but I think Edogbo has the kind of power profile that had Farrell spending 18 months investing in Joe McCarthy, when his performances were often far from warranting such investment.
Without getting too “inside baseball” here, without that injury in December 2023, Edwin Edogbo would have been involved in the wider Six Nations squad of Six Nations 2024, and if it weren’t for the badly timed concussion against Leinster in Croke Park this year, he would have played a part in Ireland’s 2025 November Series.
During his time out of the game, he’s obviously spent a lot of time adding on a ton of size, but the biggest teacher when it comes to elite-level rugby is elite-level rugby. If we compare McCarthy’s minutes up to the age of 23, we can see the experience differential.
| Player | Club minutes | Ireland (senior) minutes | Total minutes up to 23 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joe McCarthy | 1,597 | 675 | 2,272 |
| Edwin Edogbo | 821 | 0 | 821 |
By their 23rd birthdays, McCarthy had essentially completed an international-grade workload (2,272 minutes total), while Edogbo’s total (821) reflects a development curve disrupted by availability, rather than role or talent. The practical takeaway is that this is not just minutes vs minutes. It’s exposure vs injury interruption. McCarthy had most of his injury issues during his 20s career, and then for the entirety of 2020/21, which isn’t really noted as much due to the disruption of the pandemic that year. His 2022/23 was disrupted too, although not nearly to the same extent. For the last two seasons, however, including the 2023 World Cup, McCarthy’s availability has been excellent.
His reps include sustained URC/Europe blocks plus Ireland minutes, including minutes for Emerging Ireland (which I didn’t count in the numbers above), which accelerates the set-piece learning cycle and collision decision-making under pressure.
Edogbo, by contrast, arrives at the same age marker with a far smaller bank of senior-phase repetitions — so the evaluation lens really shifts from “where is he now?” to how quickly Munster build consecutive, durable minutes without sacrificing his impact profile.
The fact is that whenever Edogbo has been fit, even as an academy player, Munster have immediately used him in games of importance.
Munster knows what they have. Ireland knows what they have. So the key now is building as much experience into Edogbo that they can, to help supercharge the freak athlete with outstanding game IQ that they already have in the building.
If Edwin Edogbo can stay fit for the next few months, it is almost an inevitability that he will be involved in the Six Nations 2025 squad. That’s the challenge. To date, Edwin has yet to play professional rugby post-December in a professional rugby season, so if he can continue the good work he’s done already this season, that ascension is, for me, inevitable.
His biggest strength, at the moment, looks to be his defensive stopping power, which shows up over and over again.
He is wrapping up carriers, stopping their momentum and pulling them to their feet — either as the first tackler, but especially effectively as the second tackler.
He’s also got great instincts over the ball. He gets a strong finish to this tackle, but has the game IQ to step back and get a slow down before the ruck is formed.
It’d be easy for him to get the timing on this wrong, but he wins the race to the ball and forces the turnover despite the attempts to clean him out by James Ryan.
On the offensive side of the ball, he’s a really heavy ruck player who almost instantly wins any ruck he enters and his carrying will come too, especially as he settles into playing closer to 130kg — most of his best carrying was done closer to 120kg.
At the lineout, he’s probably best used as a lifter and maul driver, rather than as a primary jumper. If anything, I think being a primary jumper is a bad use of his skills. When he’s used as a lifter, he’s incredibly strong and sharp with his movements, getting any jumper into position quickly and solidly.
On the second example here, you can see how much ground he gains as the touchline driver in the “engine” pod of the maul.
Porter burrowing under Coombes on the infield side does the damage on this one, but that touchline side is moving.
I think we’ll get a real look at Edogbo’s potential this season if and when Munster get to deploy both himself and Jean Kleyn in the same second row, although that will require two primary jumping options in the back row to fully weaponise it in the lineout.
His scrummaging in the second row needs refining to get to the elite level, but that’s often the last thing to come for most tighthead locks — Jean Kleyn is a good example of this, actually.
One thing is for sure: if he stays fit, there’s a test-level player here, and he just needs reps — games, essentially — to get to that level.
