A Wing and a Player

SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP/Scotland v Ireland: Denis Hickie's international career was revived against Scotland three years ago this week. Gerry Thornley reports

Six years ago this weekend, Denis Hickie made his try-scoring debut for Ireland against Wales. Three years ago this week marked his second coming, actually more nerve-wracking than the first, against Scotland. Now, having been through the mill and turned 27 last Thursday, he comes across as quite the wise old sage, who has begun to see the mountain top.

Speedsters and world-class finishers like Hickie don't exactly fall off the trees in this country. So it's incredible to think that as he faced into that Scottish game, it was, as he saw it, quite possibly a trip to the last chance saloon. But Ireland won 44-22 at Lansdowne Road, and his career was back on track.

Still only 24, he had played 12 times for Ireland, nine of which were on losing sides, but had been out of the side for 20 months. Bruised by the four tries which Springbok debutant Stefan Terblanche scored in the first Test in South Africa in the summer of 1998, and battered by the broken jaw he suffered in the second Test, a subsequent back injury sidelined him for much of the following season. He had to go away and rebuild his body, his game, and quite possibly his head. That he has done all of that and more is a testimony to Hickie's resilience.

You don't get the impression that he's a prime candidate for WWF, but he's an altogether more physical player nowadays. Not Jonah Lomu maybe, but he's worth his weight in other ways. With his finishing and covering ability, no winger has given Ireland such a cutting edge in aeons. His long-range left-footed kicks for field position have become a get-out-of-the-22 card.

He has never been more content with his game or his station in it. "I suppose the older you get, the more you get used to playing, and maturity within the game as well. You've got to remember that. It's a 10-year career effectively, and if you're playing for six years you're more than half-way there . . . For a player in my position, it should be my prime between about 26 and 28."

A somewhat private individual, he has a rational, unflustered way of looking at things, not least his own career. One of life's nice guys and immensely respected within the Leinster and Irish squads, Hickie is a bright fellow with a keen sense of humour.

He can't think of many non-office jobs where you hook up with 40 good mates, have a laugh and play your favourite sport.

"It's a charmed life. I probably take it for granted more than I should, but then so does everyone else. It's the only thing I know."

With it has come a much increased profile, Hickie being one of the star names for Leinster and Ireland, a world-class finisher guaranteed to generate excitement among supporters, but he attributes his own elevation to being on the shirt-tails of the game.

"Rugby is an unrecognisable entity to what it was four or five years ago. When I first started playing for Ireland you almost kept it quiet in case someone would find out. They might come and get you. It's a big, corporate, international game and rugby has kind of a niche in this country now.

"Take Brian (O'Driscoll). He is one of the best players in the world. There's not many sports in Ireland where you can go along and see one of the best players in the world every other week."

He is content to live on his own, reasoning that "for the rest of the year I share a room with someone for weeks on end." It helps his current well-being too that he's probably never played better, nor in better Leinster or Irish teams, though he's experienced a few slings and arrows along the way.

The trough which followed the tour to South Africa he describes as "a rude awakening to the way rugby really is, and an interruption, I suppose, to the success I had enjoyed my whole rugby life. Straight from school into the 21s and stuff. That was the first time I really suffered a serious setback.

"As a way to make a living, international rugby is a hard life. It's very public, it's very unforgiving when it has to be. The rewards are great when you're doing well, and it's rotten when you're not doing well."

The lowest point was being dropped for Leinster, and playing for St Mary's away to Skerries on the same weekend his province were in action. Victor Costello, who could write a book on being left out in the cold, was particularly supportive. "He kept telling me I had loads of time, that things would work out grand. Victor was very helpful, I remember that."

Yet, because Hickie was so out of the frame for the 1999 World Cup, missing out on the Lions in 2001 was a bigger disappointment, bigger than he lets on perhaps. Inferior wingers were picked, and he would have been a great tourist, ideally suited to the Lions concept and Australian conditions.

He will go so far as to say: "I find it hard to take when I read people who were on the tour saying how bad it was or 'I'll never go on another tour again' or 'it was the worst tour of my life'. That's really what bugs me. Because no matter how bad it was, it's not as bad as sitting at home watching it."

The foot-and-mouth crisis and a broken hand did interrupt his season, the former probably costing himself, David Wallace and John Hayes spots on the tour. Still, Hickie will admit: "I had played well that year," and it does annoy him that he was seemingly judged on one game, namely the specially arranged Ireland v Rest of Ireland game on Good Friday in Limerick.

He could only bring himself to watch the Tests, but neither missing out on the last World Cup or Lions tour has prompted a burning desire to put those wrongs to right. With typically logical and phlegmatic reasoning he argues that they're each four years apart, so there's no point in targeting them until that year in question. Only now will he even start to think about the World Cup.

His international redemption began three years ago against the Scots. "When we played South Africa, the following autumn, a lot of people said 'this is a big game for you after what happened in South Africa,' but it wasn't really. I was a lot more worried about the Scottish game, in case I blew it. If I had played badly then it would have been a long way back."

He cites Niall Woods' one-off comeback game in the win against Wales at Wembley the year before. "He didn't play that badly but he didn't play well enough, and so he was gone. He never played for Ireland again.

"That's why I say if you get a second chance, everyone knows that if you don't take it you're through."

He doesn't let you in to whatever demons or doubts plagued him in his year and a half away from the Irish team, but on the hard road back there was an undeniable fragility about him at first. He is genetically slight, and in one six week spell away from training while his back was recovering, Hickie lost over a stone in weight.

So he had to build up his body in the gym, and virtually train himself to eat a lot. With increased bulk came increased mental confidence to take into contact on the pitch. "It's a big man's game, and if you can keep your speed, power and strength, and be bigger, you'll obviously be better."

He also had to re-invent himself as a winger. Hickie looks for work where before he could be a peripheral figure waiting for the work to come to him. But the speed never went away. In that sense, from the beginning, he was blessed.

"I think it must have come from my mother's side. My father was never particularly fast. I think my uncle, on my mother's side was quite quick."

Steeped in St Mary's, his uncle Denis played for Ireland in the early '70s and his father Tony was a final trialist. Hickie captained the school to a Leinster Senior Cup win. He has retained closer ties with his rugby roots than most, returning to the school to give a talk to second year students every year.

"I've always felt very comfortable in St Mary's, and it's quite a social club with a cross-section of people. My dad and uncle both captained the club and my dad still goes to all the Mary's games. I'd love to play a bit more for Mary's. Even one game a year."

Matt Williams has been a tremendous help to Hickie, and Stephen Aboud, the Union's National Coach Development Manager, has been a font of technical advice.

"The nature of rugby is that you get a lot of generic advice, so it's nice to be able to talk to someone on the outside about your position. Alan Gaffney has been great and Eddie as well. When he first came into the Irish squad, there was a big change in approach, and he had the backs to do it. But he was very ambitious and very clear about what he wanted to achieve."

Indeed, upon his second coming Hickie was struck by the huge change in the Irish set-up. "It was a completely different approach. It was so much more positive. We always had a good pack but all of a sudden we had a really good team and a really good back line. There wasn't the experience, but there wasn't the baggage."

They weren't groomed exclusively in the AIL. They were young, fearless and had been blooded successfully in the European Cup. "I think for everyone who played that day it was very noticeable that there was no one scared of anything. People were nervous playing their first match but no one was scared, whereas even on my first cap I was very nervous."

All the backs are aged between 24 and 28, so it's no wonder they are such kindred spirits on the pitch. Hickie has become one of the more senior players, though according to fellow players he is more vocal at Leinster, where he was briefly captain three seasons ago. The older you are, he says, the more interested you are in the team doing well.

You ask him what it is that he plays for, and he gives this response the deepest thought. He thinks aloud about winning, whether it's five-a-side football or international rugby, but then concludes it's even more than winning.

"More and more I suppose it's to be part of something that's really special. Something that not everyone has, something that you can set yourself apart from. Everyone has to try and make something of themselves, and I'd like to be a part of a team that achieves something, that we can all look back on and say that was a great era, and great to be a part of. Something that people and ourselves could be really proud of. And to do that really it would have to be something special." That day hasn't come yet.