Keith Earls was given a lovely surprise on Friday night when his parents, Ger and Sandra, and sister, Jenny, were invited into the Irish team room in the Shelbourne Hotel for the presentation of his 100th Test jersey.
His long-time partner, Edel McGee, and their three daughters, Ella-May, Laurie and Emie, whom he utterly adores and is besotted with, will also be in attendance at the Aviva Stadium this evening when Earls will be introduced at some point, so becoming Ireland’s ninth centurion.
Earls’s selection for Saturday’s game could be interpreted as an insurance policy against him not making the cut for the World Cup. More likely it is to ensure that Earls could celebrate the occasion in a fitting manner, in front of extended family and friends, in a full house at the Aviva Stadium, rather than in the Stade Jean Dauger in Bayonne against Samoa next week, or one of the World Cup pool games in Bordeaux or Nantes against Romania or Tonga.
Andy Farrell places huge store in players reaching landmarks such as their 50th or 100th Test caps, and that they be given every opportunity to celebrate the occasion accordingly, ideally at home, in front of a capacity crowd, perhaps leading the team out and, most importantly, with a big performance and a win.
Pending the result, selecting Earls in the ‘23′ for this game ticks plenty of boxes, with the potential to tick more.
The odds remain that Earls will make the cut to participate in his fourth World Cup. Ireland’s second highest try scorer of all time behind Brian O’Driscoll, he may thus have a chance or two to extend the one record he does hold over the great one. For despite not scoring in the 2019 World Cup, Earls’s eight tries from the 2011 and 2015 tournaments make him Ireland’s leading World Cup try scorer of all time.
If so, it will be on merit, and in part due to his versatility, while Earls’s persona is highly valued and respected by the management and team-mates alike. Tellingly, his current central contract until November was very much supported by Farrell.
First and foremost, he is such a good human being, and while he is not necessarily the most vocal, when Earls does talk his opinions are invariably well considered and relevant.
“Everything he says is always on the money,” says one team-mate. He doesn’t talk for the sake of it. His words are listened to, all of which has made him one of the group’s leaders, spiritually as much as vocally.
Essentially shy, nonetheless there is another side to Earls which only those who know him well can appreciate. Ronan O’Gara talks of a ready dry wit which could cut team-mates in half.
It tells us much about Earls, his values and his sense of loyalty, that his agent throughout his career remains John Baker, who speaks of his client regaling family and friends at his wedding with an hilarious and unscripted speech.
But Earls has also come out of his shell in recent years. In the last prematch huddle before the Italian game, he was giving the final team talk, something that would not have been remotely comfortable for him until recent years.
His searingly honest and revealing biography Fight or Flight: My Life, My Choices, which was skilfully put together and written with Tommy Conlon, winning the 2021 Sports Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, had a therapeutic and transformative effect on him.
This was all the more so after his appearance on The Late Late Show to coincide with the book’s publication in October 2021, when Earls revealed he had been diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder eight years previously.
He spoke bravely and honestly about his mental health in Fight or Flight, the negative thoughts and feeling which often consumed him, the panic attacks and fear of death, the fluctuations between despair and manic happiness, and how he named the dark, depressive alter ego in his mind ‘Hank’, after the split personality played by Jim Carrey in the film Me, Myself & Irene.
Reading about the mental and physical traumas that he had to deal with for much of his career, the wonder is he played 200 times for Munster and now 100 times for Ireland.
In another sense, Earls had such a meteoric rise that, from the outside anyway, nothing he has achieved has been a surprise. He won a Munster Schools Senior Cup with St Munchin’s, broke into the Irish under-20s and made his Munster debut at 19, was a replacement in their 2008 Heineken Cup success and scored in their Magners League final win over Leinster at 19.
More surprising is that it has taken so long and that, at 35, ‘oul man Earlsy as he’s been good-naturedly dubbed for a few years now, is still going strong, although he has always been meticulously professional about his body.
With typical modesty, Earls always spoke in awe of Luke Fitzgerald’s natural ability, his footwork and speed. The two were born only 20 days apart, with Fitzgerald the older, and were fellow travellers with the Irish under-20s and on that 2009 Lions tour.
Fitzgerald was unlucky that injuries forced him to retire at the age of 28, but Earls is, seven years on, and still going strong.
Earls scored his first Test try with his first touch of the ball in Test rugby at Thomond Park, over the wall from his home estate of Moyross, in a 55-0 win over Canada in November 2008 – almost 15 years ago.
He played for another nine minutes off the bench that month against the All Blacks yet despite not featuring in the Six Nations, was the surprise bolter, and at 21 the youngest player, in the British and Irish Lions squad to tour South Africa.
He overcame a nerve-ridden Lions debut against the South African Royal XV to play in four more midweek games, scoring tries against the Free State Cheetahs and a cracking solo effort when beating three players against the Emerging Springboks.
But he didn’t feature in any of the Test series and subsequently admitted in his biography: “As it turned out, I was too young. I wasn’t ready for a challenge on that scale. It was to be a steep learning curve and a harsh lesson.”
That debut haunted him. The concept of being a Lions player overwhelmed him. He didn’t know then how to prepare for games psychologically. He had no coping mechanisms, or as he put himself, he was as innocent as a lamb, and to compound his sense of embarrassment, Earls even read all the reports.
As he also admitted in his book, Earls could be a tad too hard on himself, even well into his 30s.
“I’m trying to get the balance right but it’s still a work in progress. I’m definitely not as hard on myself as I used to be. I’ve spent most of my career punishing myself for not being better. And if I wasn’t beating myself up in my mind, I’d be beating myself up in my body,” he confessed in his biography, also revealing that his lung capacity was barely at 50 per cent for almost four years from 2017 to the end of 2020, and at time he could barely breath after exertions or physical contact in training or in matches.
He just about survived and managed to play thanks to physiotherapy, but – described in graphic detail in his book – the problem had become so acutely debilitating and worrying that after countless conversations with his wife, Earls had resolved to retire at the end of the 2019-20 season, and had informed Munster coach Johann van Graan to that effect.
Van Graan asked him to reconsider, saying he wanted Earls to be one of the senior guiding lights among a new wave of talented younger players, and a visit to his home by Stephen Larkham and a lengthy chat also dissuaded him from retiring.
Initially Earls turned down an approach from Farrell to take part in the Covid-affected and rearranged 2020 Six Nations before a spate of injuries led to him reconsidering and being picked for the Autumn Nations Cup game away to England.
That was a blessing. The IRFU’s head of physiotherapy and rehabilitation, Phil Glasgow, the former chief physiotherapist for Team GB at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, arranged for Earls to see two consultants and breathing specialists in London. Between them, they diagnosed that the ligaments which had been holding Earls’s liver in place had been damaged, and hence his liver was floating against his diaphragm.
As a stopgap measure for the game in Twickenham two days later, Earls’s liver was held in place by strong, tightly-wrapped medical strapping. Suddenly, he could breath again, literally. Ireland lost but Earls was elated.
“That was the game where I left this long black tunnel behind me and came back into the light of day. It felt life-changing.”
Two tries followed in the Autumn Nations Cup finale against Scotland and, with his new lease of life, two more central contracts have taken him up to November.
Injuries ruled him out of Ireland’s 2014 and 2015 Six Nations titles, before he was finally part of the 2018 Grand Slam and then, last season, defied medical opinion to be part of Munster’s URC title success.
While there has been less fanfare over the finale to his career than for Johnny Sexton, the likelihood is that Earls has played his last game for Munster and will retire after this, his fourth World Cup.
Fair play to him. Nothing came easy. He’s earned everything he’s achieved and, starting today, deserves everything that is still to come.
Keith Earls statistics
Caps: 99
Wins: 61. Draws: 4. Defeats: 34
Points: 175
Tries: 35
Debut: v Canada, November 2008
First try: v Canada, November 2008
Six Nations debut: v Italy, February 2010
Rugby World Cup debut: v USA, September 2011
2008
Nov 8: Ireland 55 Canada 0
Nov 15: Ireland 3 New Zealand 22
2009
Nov 15: Ireland 20 Australia 20
Nov 21: Ireland 41 Fiji 6
Nov 28: Ireland 15 South Africa 10
2010
Feb 6: Ireland 29 Italy 11
Feb 13: France 33 Ireland 10
Feb 27: England 16 Ireland 20
Mar 13: Ireland 27 Wales 12
Mar 20: Ireland 20 Scotland 23
Nov 6: Ireland 21 South Africa 23
Nov 20: Ireland 18 New Zealand 38
Nov 28: Ireland 29 Argentina 9
2011
Feb 5: Italy 11 Ireland 13
Feb 13: Ireland 22 France 25
Feb 27: Scotland 18 Ireland 21
Mar 12: Wales 19 Ireland 13
Mar 19: Ireland 24 England 8
Aug 13: France 19 Ireland 12
Aug 20: Ireland 22 France 26
Aug 27: Ireland 9 England 20
Sep 11: Ireland 22 USA 10
Sep 17: Australia 6 Ireland 15
Sep 25: Ireland 62 Russia 12
Oct 2: Ireland 36 Italy 6
Oct 8: Ireland 10 Wales 22
2012
Feb 25: Ireland 42 Italy 10
Mar 4: France 17 Ireland 17
Mar 10: Ireland 32 Scotland 14
Mar 17: England 30 Ireland 9
June 9: New Zealand 42 Ireland 10
June 23: New Zealand 60 Ireland 0
Nov 10: Ireland 12 South Africa 16
Nov 24: Ireland 46 Argentina 24
2013
Feb 2: Wales 22 Ireland 30
Feb 10: Ireland 6 England 12
Feb 24: Scotland 12 Ireland 8
Mar 9: Ireland 13 France 13
Mar 16: Italy 22 Ireland 15
2015
Aug 8: Wales 21 Ireland 35
Aug 29: Ireland 10 Wales 16
Sep 19: Ireland 50 Canada 7
Sep 27: Ireland 44 Romania 10
Oct 4: Ireland 16 Italy 9
Oct 11: Ireland 24 France 9
Oct 18: Ireland 20 Argentina 43
2016
Feb 7: Ireland 16 Wales 16
Feb 27: England 21 Ireland 10
Mar 12: Ireland 58 Italy 15
Mar 19: Ireland 35 Scotland 25
June 11: South Africa 20 Ireland 26
June 25: South Africa 19 Ireland 13
Nov 12: Ireland 52 Canada 21
Nov 26: Ireland 27 Australia 24
2017
Feb 4: Scotland 27 Ireland 22
Feb 11: Italy 10 Ireland 63
Feb 25: Ireland 19 France 9
Mar 10: Wales 22 Ireland 9
Mar 18: Ireland 13 England 9
June 10: USA 19 Ireland 55
June 17: Japan 22 Ireland 50
June 24: Japan 13 Ireland 35
2018
Feb 3: France 13 Ireland 15
Feb 10: Ireland 56 Italy 19
Feb 24: Ireland 37 Wales 27
Mar 10: Ireland 28 Scotland 8
Mar 17: England 15 Ireland 24
June 9: Australia 18 Ireland 9
June 16: Australia 21 Ireland 26
June 23: Australia 16 Ireland 20
Nov 10: Ireland 28 Argentina 17
Nov 17: Ireland 16 New Zealand 9
2019
Feb 2: Ireland 20 England 32
Feb 9: Scotland 13 Ireland 22
Feb 24: Italy 16 Ireland 26
Mar 10: Ireland 26 France 14
Mar 16: Wales 25 Ireland 7
Sep 7: Ireland 19 Wales 10
Sep 28: Japan 19 Ireland 12
Oct 3: Ireland 35 Russia 0
Oct 12: Ireland 47 Samoa 5
Oct 19: Ireland 14 New Zealand 46
2020
Feb 8: Ireland 24 Wales 14
Feb 23: England 24 Ireland 12
Nov 13: Ireland 32 Wales 9
Nov 21: England 18 Ireland 7
Nov 29: Ireland 23 Georgia 10
Dec 5: Ireland 31 Scotland 16
2021
Feb 7: Wales 21 Ireland 16
Feb 14: Ireland 13 France 15
Feb 27: Italy 10 Ireland 48
Mar 14: Scotland 24 Ireland 27
Mar 20: Ireland 32 England 18
Nov 6: Ireland 60 Japan 5
Nov 13: Ireland 29 New Zealand 20
Nov 21: Ireland 53 Argentina 7
2022
July 2: New Zealand 42 Ireland 19
July 16: New Zealand 22 Ireland 32
2023
Aug 5: Ireland 33 Italy 17
