European Cup Pool Six: Gordon D'Arcy explains to John O'Sullivanhow he is still on a steep learning curve.
Don't judge a book by its cover is a mantra to which Gordon D'Arcy would subscribe. The chapters of his professional career as a rugby player are easy to access and thumb, from his days as a schoolboy sensation to the swashbuckling centre replete with coruscating line-breaks and jackal-like predatory skills. The periodic "blips" have ensured, however, that this narrative cannot be snugly filed under the category Boy's Own Tales.
The onfield bravura feeds popular preconceptions, but offers only a perfunctory look at the person. Occasionally, as in his charity work with GOAL, there are glimpses that suggests his life outside of rugby is less cavalier; there is a counterbalance that grounds him as a person.
Remove the mask of the professional rugby player, and the 27-year-old is revealed as a young man with a social conscience, driven to succeed on and off the pitch, an avid reader, a music lover, someone who revels in friendships forged in boyhood and the ties of a close-knit family who don't mollycoddle.
He's a proud Wexford man and follows the fortunes of his county across the sporting spectrum.
"I come from a small town originally. Wexford is my county. Whether it's watching Linda Caulfield, Kevin Doyle, Wexford GAA teams (he loves hurling in particular) or soccer - I love that identity, that sense of community."
Attempts to enlarge the picture are met with a cautionary note: "The only thing about giving away stuff on your personal life is that they judge you by the cover of the book you are reading and you can come across as a little bit weird."
So what's this weirdo reading? D'Arcy smiles: "I'm actually reading a biography of Che Guevara, the Jon Lee Anderson one. It's over 800 pages and each one contains so much information, names and places, that I'm still reading it six months later. It's not exactly light reading, but it's very enjoyable.
"I am also reading the Communist Manifesto (he's in first year Arts at UCD, studying Sociology, Geography and Economics), the abridged version, which is a slow process too, dependent on taking notes and looking up the meaning of words. Sometimes you can read a couple of sentences where you don't get the proper meaning and I have to go and look up words, get the dictionary. I can't just skip over a word I don't understand."
He claims his night-time reading is less erudite, but his love of philosophy (The Tao of Pooh) and classics such as Lord of the Flies, Silas Marner, The Hobbitand his all-time favourite, Lord of the Rings, suggest otherwise.
He reads the paper, itself something of a shock revelation given most sportspeople insist they don't, and music magazines like Uncut, Q4musicand Hot Press. Indeed, music is a focal point in his life; he buys six or seven CDs a month outside of those he specifically wants and lives near Whelan's in Dublin's Wexford Street.
"I have a good mate who runs the ticket desk at the venue and I can sit in there and watch the music if I am on my own and I don't have to worry about chatting to anyone. I can just watch the gig and slip away."
The bibliography of his musical taste includes Creedence Clearwater Revival, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young (one of his all-time favourites), The Beatles, Madonna, Michael Jackson (child of the 80s) and latterly The Kings of Leon and Gossip.
It also intrudes into his rugby career: "I listen to music on the way to matches because emotions can be a very good tool to help you play well. My choice changes constantly. Sometimes you are down in the dumps and you play quite mellow music, emotive songs; other times you're jumping and you play music that keeps you jumping. I have about five to 10 playlists with anything from Damien Rice to the Chemical Brothers."
As a young player he was superstitious until he realised routine was better for the body and soul.
"As long as I have my boots, my undershorts and my gumshield, I'll get by. I did a lot of work with a sports psychologist, Enda McNulty, the Armagh GAA player. He's quite a personable guy. He gave me some really good pointers.
"Training well, eating well, doing the right recovery ensures that you keep playing to a standard. Being superstitious, you're focusing on putting on your left boot first or something like that. Suddenly you don't play well and your mind races, thinking, 'What's happened, I put my left boot on first. What do I do?' You actually have to focus quite a lot on superstition, which takes away from concentrating on what's required to play a match."
In offering another snapshot into his life away from rugby D'Arcy highlights the importance of friendships forged at Clongowes and his desire to get away from his profession: "I'm a one-bag holiday man. Florence is definitely one of my favourite cities. I have a friend out there who's an artist. I've visited him a couple of times. It's fantastic, a chic city, with understated class where everybody takes notice of you with . . . everything is under scrutiny, yet no one knows who you are.
"I've been to Pamplona for the bull run. I told Michael Cheika I was going and his last words were, 'Please don't do the bull run.'
"I go away with 10 friends from school (Clongowes), one bag, away for three weeks and no one talks about rugby - I went to a music festival in Barcelona as well. My attitude is life is there to be enjoyed.
"The big one I want to do is the Inca Trail but I'm scared of heights. It takes about four days to do it but my crippling fear of heights is going to be a massive drawback. I don't get into glass elevators as a rule. The Blackrock Clinic, four storeys, that's as high as I go. If I have to go any higher, I have to sit on the floor and face the door. I didn't get out of the lift in the Sky Tower in New Zealand.
"Drops over the edge (roadside) in a car would make me unbelievably nervous; walking not so much but in cars where I have no control, definitely."
A trip with GOAL to Calcutta last year had a massive impact on his life. "It's something I want to continue when I finish playing rugby. I'll be hopefully 32 or 33 and I'll and have given 15 years to the sport. At that point I'll want to end that chapter and be practically useful somewhere else."
This is why he has returned to college, first-year Arts at UCD, the fear of injury and what his long-term future might hold driving him back to the books. He's charting a roundabout course back to the quantity surveying he initially studied at the Dublin Institute of Technology.
He explained: "I couldn't get the practical side of it done. DIT were absolutely amazing and they tried to bend over backwards to facilitate me. I couldn't do the course work because I couldn't go to building sites. It's different for someone like Felipe (Contepomi, who qualified as a doctor) because he could go to the hospital at 6am and put in four hours.
"Building sites don't open until 8am and I'm contracted to rugby first and foremost. I want to end up back at quantity surveying; this is just the best way for me to do that."
So what's it like being a part-time student?
"It's pretty nerve wracking walking into a lecture hall and I know nobody but half of those there know me. Nearly all are quite nice but you hear the odd snigger or comment. I end up sitting on my own. I don't mind that because there is no social aspect to college for me; it's about learning.
"That can be intimidating and a tough prospect for a 27-year-old - I wish I had focused on putting in those three years when I was 20 . . . for instance, it's maths they did six months ago but I did 10 years ago. I'm on a very steep learning curve when I'm there. I get to tutorials whenever I can and UCD are pretty good about it but the work still has to be done.
"I may be playing for Leinster in Toulouse this weekend but I still have to hand in essays this week and next. There are times when you're sitting there and you can't figure out why you're putting yourself through this."
D'Arcy laughs before adding, "It's easier to study at 20 than 27. It's well documented that I didn't hit maturity until I was about 23. I offered a classic example of pretty much what not to do. The structures are in place now to offer guidance to young players. They weren't there in my time."
If events are going to his satisfaction off the pitch, the recent experience with Ireland in the World Cup served to remind him nothing can be taken for granted. D'Arcy has enjoyed far more bouquets than brickbats in his career, forging a reputation as one of the world's finest centres. He didn't live up to his reputation in France; nor did the team.
"It was a massive disappointment and I take it personally. I fully accept that I am part of the reason why we didn't perform. It hurts every time I think about it. For two weeks after that World Cup I couldn't look at people in the eye walking down the street. Nobody gave me any grief, which I appreciated.
"Have I gone over things in my head? Yes of course. Maybe I wasn't fit enough, maybe my head wasn't right? Then I played in the first game for Leinster and realised that neither was the case. Physically I was in great shape, mentally my head was right.
"I didn't feel under pressure at the World Cup. I wanted to succeed. After the Georgia game, I realised I had only made one clean break in two matches; I couldn't fathom why. If anyone says they had 100 per cent belief in themselves throughout the World Cup they are lying. Unfortunately I didn't find any answers."
D'Arcy found it ludicrous that the players had to trot out how happy and tight-knit they were for the edification of others: "We got it right so many times in the last three years but couldn't in France. The preparation was right, the players rested at the right time and people were in good nick physically; certainly that's my experience.
"If someone can come out and say why we didn't play well in the World Cup, then fair play to them, because I can't. I wasn't happy with any of my performances. There is a group acceptance that units (within the team) didn't play well nor did we play well as a team.
"Off the field we couldn't have been happier. It didn't click on the pitch. I'll be interested to see what come out of the review but those looking for infighting, splits, and other rubbish that was aired will be disappointed.
"The brilliant thing about sport is that it's not always predictable: Greece winning the soccer European Championships or Wexford winning an All-Ireland. We believed we were good enough."
On his return to Leinster the form that had eluded D'Arcy during the World Cup reappeared instantly, illustrated in performances against Ulster, Connacht and most recently Leicester. He appears reinvigorated.
"Since I have been back with Leinster I have been bowled over by the intensity of training. It's short, precise and accurate, game-related, high-intensity, doing things at match pace. Everyone is clued in to what we are doing. We are training the way we want to play. There is competition all through the squad, not in terms of knifing each other in the back, but a real family atmosphere."
He switches tack quickly to highlight the performance of the pack, fleshing out individual contributions, before laughing: "People talking about the Munster backs and the Leinster forwards at the weekend; what's going on? I take off my hat to those boys (the Leinster pack) because I can't do what I do unless they give me the ball. At the moment I couldn't ask for better quality ball from rucks, lineouts, scrums and mauls. Leicester came over to play, "whose is bigger" and you either match that physical intensity or else. We did . . .
"This weekend in Toulouse another step up will be required. It's like looking in the mirror. We have the same strengths. On a personal level, I am looking forward to facing Yannick Jauzion. He's very quiet, a really nice guy who plays his best rugby when left to get on with his job. I always rise to the challenge of playing against him because I think he is the best 12 in the world.
"If you get a name for getting up early you can stay in bed all day. It's going to take us a while to change people's preconceived notions of the current team. We're aware there is a very fine line between self-belief and complacency.
"I suppose a way to illustrate it is that sometimes you don't have to do a lot of match preparation because it's in the head and sometimes you think you don't need to do a lot of match preparation because you think it's in the head. The difference is subtle but massive."
Leinster are primed for tomorrow's game and he cannot wait. It's another honours-level paper for the keen student, and as he's frequently demonstrated, he usually comes up with the answers.
Gordon D'Arcy
PositionCentre
ClubLansdowne FC
ProvinceLeinster
SchoolClongowes Wood College
Date of birthFebruary 10th, 1980
Height5ft 11in
Weight88kg
Official Leinster caps129
Points scored256 (45 tries, 2 cons, 5 pens, 4 drop-goals)
Celtic League/Cup caps63 (21 tries, 1 pen, 2 drop-goals, 1 con)
European Cup caps51 (19 tries, 1 con, 4 pens, 2 drop-goals)
Senior debutFriendly, 15-13 win v Edinburgh, Kelso, (Sep '98)
European Cup debut28-17 loss v Stade Français, Donnybrook, (Sep 1998)
LionsNew Zealand 2005
Ireland caps36 (October 1999 to date)
Ireland points20 (4 tries)
Ireland A caps10
Ireland Under-21 caps7
Ireland Under-19 caps1
Ireland Schools caps3
Leinster Under-20/21 caps2
