Earlier this season Cian Healy pulled up the Leinster coaches: "What if Jack McGrath gets injured early on and I haven't played 70 minutes since before the 2013 Lions tour?"
Healy, ranked as the premier loosehead in world rugby back then, got little sympathy. Three years riddled with the bullet holes from invasive surgery will do that. Joe Schmidt perhaps recognised the same logic by starting him against Italy. But then McGrath was sore.
Nine minutes into the Pro12 semi-final defeat to Scarlets, McGrath’s elbow wouldn’t bend, so Healy had to flog himself to exhaustion.
“I pulled up the Leinster coaches about it: ‘What’s going to happen if I have to play for longer?’ We ended up in that situation in the last game when Jack took a bump. I played my first 70 in four years. The tank was fairly empty by the end of that.”
Despite the obvious frustration, he adds: “I haven’t felt over-exposed in any length of play I have had, so happy enough.”
But that lack of exposure meant it was hardly a surprise when his Lions number never came up.
Decent alternative
“You can’t expect to go on a tour like that when you are on the bench. It is at the back of your head but I was just focused on playing rugby . . . There was such a long period where I wasn’t happy with the level I was playing at, when the body felt right again this year, after having the chance to let it rest last summer, I took it as a personal thing to get back to my own [standard].”
It’s unlikely Healy will touch the 70-minute mark on this tour as Dave Kilcoyne is a decent alternative. In fact, there are plenty of young Irish props nowadays.
Healy was the last of the unrivalled heavies, those who came up as rumour to hold the jersey until time or injury took it from them. His 67 caps jumped off the page when this Ireland squad was announced.
Keith Earls has 57, Dev Toner made up for lost time in recent seasons to nudge the 50-mark and Simon Zebo has 33.
None of them are natural leaders so the core group assisting Rhys Ruddock – 13 caps to go with about the same number of tears since 2010 – are Test match babies like Dan Leavy and Luke McGrath. Both with only two caps but they were Ireland under-20s captains, as was Niall Scannell.
Players will always look to Garry Ringrose, for deeds not words, while James Ryan has led every team he ever played for (he hasn't been capped by Leinster yet).
Throne bearer
Healy has been a throne bearer his entire career. Back in his Belvedere College days there was Paul O’Donohoe, Eoin O’Malley and Ian Keatley. At Leinster Jamie Heaslip was always beside him.
“I try to drag lads along to do extras, to do scrum stuff, that would be my different way of doing it. I don’t like to chime up too much in meetings.”
But one of the next three Saturday’s is bound to get messy. There’s no cohesion, no run of games this Ireland squad can fall back on when older, wiser international opponents seek a brawl. When it happened in Houston four years ago Peter O’Mahony did the sorting out.
“We’re not coming into it and saying we’re not expecting a s**t-fest. We’re going in expecting a very tough one . . . but I wouldn’t have any worries about cap numbers or anything like that.”
Unrivalled
Not even those on zero. Andrew Porter was the unrivalled loosehead during last year's Junior World Cup, when Ireland reached the final under Ryan's leadership, but Marty Moore's switch to Wasps prompted Leinster's scrum coach John Fogarty to make Porter a proposition.
“I’m delighted,” smiles the 29-year-old of Healy 2.0 switching to tighthead.
Did you chime up in that meeting? “I didn’t have a say in it now! But when the decision was made that he would move across I wasn’t complaining.”
Healy is already helping to turn the 21-year-old into Tadhg Furlong’s worst nightmare. “In Leinster he is going to be exposed to Jack, myself and [Peter] Dooley going at it, man, every chance. It’s a tough road he is going to have to take. It’s fight or flight. I don’t think he can afford not to do well there.
“We had a tough scrummaging session the other day when everyone ended up getting it dished to them a bit. It’s a big learning curve.”
