Healy’s long road back sharpens desire for action

Cian Healy sighs what seems like a belly full of air and screws up his face. His last full game of rugby, well, it's not really somewhere he wants to go or something he needs to contemplate on the week that England arrive.

“Jesus, yeah,” he says. “it’s a long time, too long ago to think about.”

Healy finds himself in a strange place, a place that for now will do him just fine. Jack McGrath has arrived in his absence after the loosehead prop’s hamstring came off the bone back in September.

McGrath has had a good landing in the Irish frontrow and, even with Healy back fully fit, the talk is of him being used as an impact player.

With only appearances off the bench and last week 38 minutes with Leinster, Healy's role for now may not be as pivotal as it once was.

Rather than being one of the centre points of the team, he is making his way from the periphery.

“I’ve never really stood back to think of it like that,” he says. “I’ve been fairly tunnel-visioned on where I want to be and where I want to get to and how I’m going to do it. I haven’t really looked at anything outside that.

“I wouldn’t have come back if I didn’t think I could last the pace at this level. I’ve a good fitness level. Strength hasn’t been an issue over the whole thing. I feel I’m in a good position if called upon.”

Lack of clutter

There’s a directness and a lack of clutter about the old Belvedere boy. There will be no difference to his play when he gets his chance because he only ever plays at 100 per cent. Simple.

He doesn't look at other props to measure them up and tick them off for their eccentricities or strengths. He gives the impression that he is at once extremely detailed about the opposition and that he doesn't really care about them, not even Dan Cole, Joe Marler and Dylan Hartley.

“No, I don’t really do that,” he says when asked to pick a standout prop. “The only one I would look at is Dan [Cole] and I’ve been at him since underage level. He’s been the cornerstone of their pack and he’s the one I’d really take note of.

"They are a strong scrum. It's a scrum that will give Ireland an awful lot of pressure. We've been training some new things on old things and building up that pressure and testing it towards the end of this week.

“Mike [Ross] is doing a good job. It’s all that pressure he’s put under in the scrums, Jack [McGrath] and myself going against him and Marty [Moore] and the lads going at him from other positions. It’s the good players who turn up when that starts to happen.”

When he played with Leinster last Friday, Healy was like a dog just off the leash charging around the RDS as if the layoff had brought freshness back and given his appetite an extra edge.

His last outing before the injury was a romp off the bench in Leinster’s defeat by Connacht in September. He tore his hamstring during a training session the following week. It’s been arduous but there are no fears that he is carrying a weakness in the area now.

“It’s actually been very strong,” he says. “When I was playing at the start and it got banged into a few strange positions, it reinforced how strong it is now and how much work I’ve done on it. The first few weeks coming back it was tested quite well and that helped to quickly get it off my mind.

Cleared fully

“I’m not really at the docs any more. It’s cleared fully and strength work is all back up.”

For now it's waiting for an opportunity and, be certain about it, Joe Schmidt will offer him that. Such is Healy's forceful quality, no team would use it sparingly.

McGrath won’t want to budge. But Healy wants his shirt back. The bench doesn’t fit with the aims he speaks of.

“Listen I always want to start,” he says. “That’s why you play rugby, isn’t it?”

No dissenters.