Richardt Strauss back in the picture

In Joe Schmidt's three seasons at Leinster, Richardt Strauss played 77 games for Leinster, a healthy 64 of them from the start. He was indestructible.

In the one and a half seasons since, he's had knee, ankle, heart and hamstring problems. He was, not unreasonably, beginning to think he was cursed, and has been through the wringer since his Irish debut against South Africa in November 2012 but, two years on virtually to the day, last Saturday he finally made his first appearance for Ireland under Schmidt in a win over his native country.

He desperately wanted to beat the Springboks. Losing 16-12 on his debut after leading 12-3 at half-time still rankled, all the more so as he felt Ireland were in control. Naturally enough, making his debut against his native country, Strauss was targeted too.

“Obviously they were going to try and do something and you accept that. You actually wouldn’t want it any other way, than them to come at you, so I enjoyed that and it was good.”

He liked the way Ireland put the Springboks under pressure in a way they wouldn’t normally be used to, while he himself was significantly brought on in the 58th minute, as Ireland’s first replacement and just after South Africa had brought the score back to 13-10.

Aside from being the first to jump on Tommy Bowe after his try, Strauss won one turnover in contact and another on the ground in a meaningful contribution. "That was right up there with the RDS, and all the Heineken Cup matches. It was a brilliant feeling and I'll definitely always remember getting one over them."

Ironically, a yellow card cost Ireland severely two years ago, whereas this time it was the sinbinning of Strauss’s cousin Adriaan which proved a turning point. “Looking at it I felt very sorry for him but we’ll take that any day.” he says, giggling.

‘Tough time’

He has bought into his Irish career completely, today marks his first start for Ireland since the June Tests in Canada and the USA, and no Irish player has endured a tougher time in the intervening two years more than Strauss. “Yea, tough time,” he admits. “The thought that went through my head was ‘what have I done wrong?’ as I went through all of it. Because I was pretty lucky with injuries until I was 26.”

Having broken into the Irish team in November 2012 when making his debut against South Africa, and following that up with a try-scoring display against Argentina, his season was interrupted by first a medial cruciate ligament and then an ankle injury which ruled him out of the 2013 Six Nations.

But that was nothing compared to being diagnosed in October 2013 to have a hole in his heart which would require surgery, and there was a badly torn hamstring which ended his season prematurely last May and sidelined him for five months. He was entitled to ask what he’d done wrong alright.

“I got a fright,” he admits, which must be putting it mildly, of the discovery of his heart problem. “They (the Leinster medical staff) just got concerned about a couple of concussions I had and then sent me in for a routine check-up to see if they could find anything, and originally the doctor said he couldn’t see anything and sent me home.

“Then just as I got home I got a call to say the radiologist had picked something up, and I had to come back in. And that was when they found an old bruise in the back of my brain. They took me in to hospital to do a couple of tests and the first day they did the tests, they did a bubble test on me and that’s when they found a hole in my heart.

“I just lay in the bed in hospital and the doctor comes in and tells me ‘it looks like you have a hole in your heart and you might have had a stroke’,” recalls Strauss, smiling at the memory in a form of gallows humour. “I didn’t know what was going on. I just sat there scared to death for about a day until they came in and talked me through the whole process and what it is, and whatever.

‘Pretty scary’

“That put me at ease and then I had to wait a week or so for the procedure to be done, and it was pretty scary the day it happened, because obviously I didn’t know what was going on. Once they start talking about your heart you think ‘oh no’ and you get a fright about it, but once it was done it was just a bit of time for me to get back playing.”

Yet it was the longest week of his life. Time seemed to stand still and he was left with his own thoughts in a hospital bed. “There is so much stuff going through your mind. You don’t really know what’s going on. But luckily they found it and got it fixed.

One of the neurologists who came in to examine Strauss had a friend in the USA who worked on a guy called Teddy Bruschi, the one-time New England Patriots linebacker who recovered from a stroke in 2005 to resume his career for three more years. “He had a stroke, had his heart fixed and went on to play NFL and they won the Super Bowl. He (the neurosurgeon) said he (Bruschi) was able to do it so why couldn’t I? And it went on from there.”

For the first week he wasn’t allowed to do anything. For the next month he was allowed to do running and cycling, and then weights. He was told he was going to be on tablets to thin his blood for about six months before he could resume even contact work. But three months into this process Strauss saw his surgeon and along with Dr Arthur Tanner and the Leinster medical team, decreed that the quantity of the aspirin Strauss was taking was sufficiently small for him to resume playing, and so they decided to take him off it altogether.

Five days was all that was then required for the aspirin to leave his system and then he could resume training. The following week he came on to a rapturous reception from an almost disbelieving RDS crowd in a 36-3 win over the Ospreys which ensured Leinster reached the Heineken Cup quarter-finals as pool winners.

“The reception I got at the RDS that night was very humbling,” the memory clearly etched with him forever as he lowers his voice slightly. “You’re just thankful for that. That was one of the greatest moments of my career, I would say. Then it was just great to be back on the pitch, throwing the ball around and to play with the lads. I was pretty happy with that.”

Alas, in the game against Edinburgh at the beginning of May, Strauss’s tore his hamstring clear off the bone. “That was very, very painful, and when it happened I immediately knew I’d done something serious. The same thoughts went through my head [as before]. ‘What have I done wrong?’ Because I actually felt good. I was physically in very good shape and when that happened everything starts to go through your head. You just go to a very dark place. But I got out of it.”

At least he had no setbacks in his rehab, and could take a three-week break back in South Africa. And so on October 10th Strauss made his latest comeback in the win away to Zebre. “I was absolutely dead after about 45 minutes and they kept me on for another while, but it was good to get a good run out and get into it again. You’re always going to be rusty for the first couple of games.”

What Strauss’s career has underlined, both in the good days and now the more trying ones, is that the Irish system has not only made him a better player but will facilitate his recovery.

A boon

Finally working with Schmidt again is also a boon. “It’s very intense with Joe, but it’s been good. I’ve always enjoyed the way he’s done stuff.”

Needless to say, a heart scare made him put rugby into perspective. “It makes you realise rugby isn’t everything, and that you’ve got a life outside of that. The hamstring is just frustrating and every player has to deal with injuries at some time in their careers, and it was just unfortunate that it happened after something like the heart stuff.

“It made you just a bit more patient and grateful for every time you can go out on the pitch, run around pain free and train with the boys and have a bit of fun. It makes you appreciate the daily stuff, where sometimes you would have gone ‘I don’t believe I have to do this again’. Now I can go out and say: ‘Three months ago I was in braces and crutches, and was cursing everything because I wasn’t able to do it.’ So let’s just embrace this and enjoy it while I can.”

Perhaps, a Test against Georgia is perhaps most relevant for Strauss and his fellow frontrowers. "Yea, and that's great, and we want to have the chance to right the wrongs of last week, to show that we are a good pack and it doesn't matter who's playing. So it's a brilliant opportunity for us."