Ireland’s Donnacha Ryan takes lessons from long lay-off

It’s doubtful if any member of the Irish squad is more pleasantly surprised to be here than Donnacha Ryan. Of all the stories of recovery, Ryan’s is perhaps the most heart-warming.

The secondrow was sidelined for 12 months, from March 2014 to March of this year, with what his Munster coach Anthony Foley described as “a weird injury”; a damaged sesamoid bone underneath the toe that meant he was unable to scrum. But Ryan not only made it back; he is playing as well as ever.

Like Keith Earls, Ryan bridged a gap of 17 months dating back to Declan Kidney’s last game as Irish coach in Rome in March 2013 when starting the first of the warm-up matches away to Wales. Despite his work-rate and lineout excellence, and another strong run-on from the bench in the return meeting with the Welsh, Ryan was not especially optimistic about making the World Cup cut.

Fateful Sunday

“No. I wasn’t confident of being here a few months ago,” he admitted. Even on the fateful Sunday when the squad was finalised, Ryan was not one of those sitting over his laptop waiting for news.

“I suppose it’s common knowledge that the email was very late out. My girlfriend lives in Dublin so I was actually heading back down to Munster at about 8.30/9.00, and I was anticipating a phone call on the way home in the car. So it was great to get the email and back into work the next day. I’m delighted now. The folks were over the moon. I’d say they’re more delighted now than I am at this stage,” he said, grinning.

It had been an arduous journey back. “It was up and down. I suppose I learned an awful lot about myself. I’m trying to park it now and move on, and not over-think things too much further down the line. Just focus on today’s training. I used to think things two or three years down the line, which is not a safe thing to do in rugby.

“So it gives you massive perspective. Everybody goes through injuries, and it does test your mettle but I was fortunate enough to have fantastic people around me.

“I’ve learned an awful lot about feet as well,” he added wryly, having had contact with other players with the same injury.

Very much his own man, Ryan is not shy of admitting to being a fan of The Nutcracker. "It's well worth watching and going to see actually, it's very good. Tchaikovsky is fantastic. I'd highly recommend to watch it but I don't think spandex would be my cup of tea," he said with a wink.

While not taking this World Cup lightly, Ryan comes across as someone in bonus territory. “I used to get very stressed out about things, in a good way. I’d put massive pressure on myself to perform. I didn’t want to let anyone down.

“I love the pressure and now I’m really, really enjoying it. I’m taking a systematic approach and not letting things out of my control.

“I probably sound like some drunk or something but that’s the type of approach you’ve got to have. It’s just basically looking at it systematically, how I approach the week and not getting too far ahead and build small blocks throughout the week. That’s the best way to be.”

In the last World Cup, he started the pool game against Russia and came off the bench against Italy and Wales. After being left on the bench in the opener against the USA in New Plymouth, he cycled downtown to meet some friends in a bar.

“I was disappointed not to get a run and ended up getting pulled over by the cops for not wearing a cycling helmet. I couldn’t catch a break that night! I had to walk the bicycle for another 500 metres, so I got a lot of slagging.”

Croke Park

While the compulsory photo of an English player in his room at the FA’s St George’s Park happens to also feature Ronnie Whelan, being from Tipperary, “Croke Park is more my cup of tea” – though he’s still love the opportunity of playing at Wembley.

And one curious benefit of his absence, primarily due to the amount of stretching his rehab required (and despite increasing his weight from 112kg to 115kg), is that he has got faster, as evidenced by his late covering tackle at Twickenham.

“My game is high work-rate and since I’ve been coming back I’ve been very blessed in that my speed has gone up an awful lot,” he said, revealing his speed has increased to “8.8 metres per second. Before I was 7.8. Wagon wheels!”