Bull poised to hit magical ton

Johnny Wattersonwatched as John Hayes took centre stage, much to the amusement of some of his team-mates

JOHN HAYES has become the stately Grand Piano in the corner of the room. The owners shine it, mend it and while they can’t prevent the other kids from banging the lid or knocking it about, it remains a solid, venerable fixture that seems to mature more than age.

A century of caps when he lines out against England on Saturday, off pitch bashfully reticent, Hayes (36) has become rugby’s unlikely professional front runner. But his longevity and prize position within coach Declan Kidney’s thinking reflects an essential gene that ensures the longer he goes on the less inclined they are to retire him.

He started campaigning at around the same time as Brian O’Driscoll 10 years ago but short of an act of God before the weekend he will beat the Irish captain by one cap to the 100 mark, having begun his international career five years the current captain’s senior. Hayes’ first Irish frontrow line-up then was himself, Keith Wood at hooker and Peter Clohessy. Quite the legendary lot.

But the biggest unit on the Irish team also remains a minimalist interviewee. He is reluctant to amplify anything. A decade on the hustings has failed to loosen his tongue. Hayes’ standout memories over the course of 100 international matches runs short of 10 syllables. “None stick out like,” he says with an honest shift of his ursine frame. “Can’t think of any.”

He concedes the Grand Slam win was standout. But it has always been thus. The Bull’s tradition has been to indifferently permit others to speak for him and in 10 years of Irish team announcements no one can remember the tighthead prop sitting between O’Driscoll and coach Declan Kidney answering questions in front of the cameras.

“I’d like to embarrass him but I’d probably get a dig,” said Kidney before his brief homily. “I think to get 100 caps is an absolutely phenomenal achievement. To get it at tighthead prop, given how fit you have to remain and how strong you have to be, is an exceptional achievement.”

Secondrow and prankster Donncha O’Callaghan had no such considerations. “Did you see him in today (to the press conference) for the first time? 100 caps waiting for him! You don’t get much out of him. When Deccie announced it he made a bit of a fuss about it, which would kill Hayes,” said O’Callaghan.

“He just went red, and you know it’s killing him. Everyone else would enjoy this week. But Hayes just can’t wait ’til it’s over. A fuss for Hayes is probably just talking about it for two weeks. There was no presentation, he just wouldn’t put up for it. He’d rather get on, do his job, get off and get home to the farm and rub his cows.”

Hayes speaks like there is no grand plan, that his career has fortuitously lumbered along without the threat of career-ending injuries, without falling out of love with the paddock, gym, hotel and match routine. His enthusiasm and body have remained loyal to what will be, alongside that of O’Driscoll, one of the longest careers in Irish rugby.

“As I said I’ve just been lucky,” he says. “I’ve lost some of my team-mates over the years that have picked up injuries. I just feel so sorry for them. There’s no secret or anything. I’ve never picked up those kinds of injuries. Some of it might be that when I started playing I wasn’t really a young fella playing against older fellas. Maybe that did stand to me.”

That slow burning start to attritional frontrow life combined with a trip to New Zealand in the 1990s launched Hayes into his current lofty orbit. A shift from secondrow to the frontrow and a change at the time in the laws regarding lifting in the lineouts made the naturally strong Irishman a greatly more valued asset. Yesterday he was reminded that the Kiwi experience of almost 15 years ago might be circled with a final trip back there for the 2011 RWC World Cup.

“I spent two seasons there a long time ago,” he says. “It’s a great country and it definitely helped me along the way. ’95 and ’96 were the two years I was there so . . . that was when the lineouts changed. Lifting came in ’96 so that kind of changed me and I got to finish up in the frontrow.

“I was a bit slow to start with. I’d never considered it. They said to me it was a way for me to go. The new rules had come in at the time so I gave it a go anyway. It’s worked out okay since. I suppose the first time it was said to me I probably was a bit sceptical but not for too long.

“I gave it a go,” he adds with fabulous understatement. “It hasn’t been too bad.” He says that when he got the first cap he just wanted a second one and that he never dreamed he could be looking behind at the chasing pack. Ronan O’Gara and O’Driscoll were both clipping his heels.

But an aspect of Hayes’ endurance is there has been no one to offer an effective threat to him at tighthead prop. Astonishingly it will be his 51st successive Test and in 99 matches he has started in all but three. But he has his critics who see the scrum as his Achilles heel. “People are entitled to their opinion,” says the Cappamore man. “It’s been a part of my game that I’ve always had to work hard on, try and keep improving, so no it (criticism) never hurt anyway.”

Doesn’t seem to have hurt so far.