Exactly a year tomorrow Ireland will face Canada in the opening match of their World Cup campaign. A long time in days and weeks but not so long when measured out in Joe Schmidt time.
Schmidt is counting out the year in squad sessions, long weekends in Carton House, snatched time between Pro 12 and the European Cup. He is hollowing out the months for what he can get for himself. But already broad strokes have been put down with the players.
Jamie Heaslip, straight back for Leinster last week with the personal triumph of a man-of-the-match performance, looks towards Connacht on Friday.
It would be ‘”unprofessional” to do otherwise. But the challenge of the World Cup figures for Heaslip and doubtlessly Schmidt, as large on the horizon, a career-changer.
Full house
“It’s the only thing I haven’t won,” says the Leinster captain. Pro 12,
Heineken Cup
,
Six Nations
Championship, Grand Slam. A neat hand. But when the time comes and he walks from the game, a full house requires another card.
“I play to win. I don’t play to take part,” he says. “Connacht this Friday. That is kind of where my head is at. But people like Joe and the management team, I can guarantee you they have probably thought past the World Cup. He’s probably 15 months down the line and that’s what we need.”
Schmidt has already stressed the importance of the squad. It’s a sort of rugby banality, an observation fished from the cliché pool but Schmidt has added illustration and as great coaches do, make cliché the new original.
"He [Schmidt] showed the emphasis that the squad places on it [World Cup]," explains Heaslip. "He showed the Italy game. The tries scored in the last ten minutes were all scored by substitutions.
Clear picture
“He laid it out, in terms of what people want to work on . . . this is how we’re measuring you. I always like that, a very clear picture of ‘this is what we’re looking at lads, this is what we’re tracking’
“This is the way Joe wants to play. Then guys can’t really complain, ‘well I didn’t know this, that and the other.’”
As Leinster captain Heaslip prides himself on the basic mechanics of doing what he must. His ethic is to follow good advice, never stray from being professional at his job.
Captaincy came to him unexpectedly in Leinster when Matt O’Connor tapped him on the shoulder after a weights session and dropped the question. No hesitation. “I was, like, ‘yeah, deadly’.” The role picked Heaslip. Paul O’Connell will probably lead Ireland, but Heaslip on his game is one of the best eights in the game and another leader.
“I try to set a good example on how to go about your business, how to be a pro on and off the field, more in a holistic way because I’m not a scream and shout kind of guy 24/7.
“It might be a bit different in the changing room on the day of a game. But I’m more during the week trying to speak with actions rather than words. We’ve got lots of talkers anyway.”
He is more than a rugby player, a businessman too and he makes no bones about it.
His sponsorships, his share in Bear, a Dublin restaurant, his income as an IRFU employee . . . diplomacy prevents him from making any comment on wealthy businessmen such as Denis O’Brien paying part of the salaries of high profile Irish rugby players and he doesn’t care to discuss why they might do that.
Switch
But he has a clear off-pitch life from his playing life, a switch that he can trip without much effort and distance himself from the game. And maybe that makes him a better rugby player. Maybe the two clearly defined paths give him clarity. There are very much parallel Heaslip lives.
“There very much is, yeah,” he says. “But I have to do that for myself, just to keep myself fresh. I don’t know . . . I can’t watch a lot of games. That’s not to say I don’t watch games every so often.”
A year out from Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, days away from Connacht in the Sportsground and already the year is shrinking.
