IRELAND V AUSTRALIA: Johnny Wattersontalks to loosehead prop Cian Healy as he prepares to make his full international debut for Ireland against Australia tomorrow

THE QUESTION that Declan Kidney declined to fully address on Wednesday was a reasonable one. Given his position, perhaps reasonably dodged too.

The Irish coach was asked if he had concerns about the front row. He inimitably batted it away with a “we’ve got what we’ve got, we picked the best team available, you can either moan or get on with it” type reply. John Hayes and Jerry Flannery have had limited pitch time over the last two months, while loose head prop Cian Healy is making his international debut. The essence of the question was whether this was a front row battle hardened enough to go to war with the Aussies.

Robbie Deans will look at Ireland and consider if that area is one in which Australia should land some ordinance. Hayes has been out for six weeks and Flannery has struggled with a calf injury for five weeks. In one of the many ironies of international rugby selection that Kidney fully discussed in his press conference after announcing the team, the one he didn’t settle on was the irony of the 22-year-old prop coming in to earn his first cap as the only front row player with current, competitive form and real-match fitness.

Healy is not the personality to overly complicate his role or dwell on real or imagined media concerns. The nuances and tricks of fate, the injuries, suspensions and illnesses that have brought the three together in Croke Park are celebrated more than they have been a source of real anxiety. A fit Marcus Horan would certainly be tomorrow’s loose head prop and a fitter Hayes and Flannery would be preferable, but Healy’s elevation or his ability to trail blaze at international level as he has done for the province has not caused the slightest ripple of concern.

Excitement and anticipation over the skill set that the former Belvedere College student can bring to the game appears to be universal.

“There is hope of course, but I didn’t expect anything at all,” said Healy. “It was just a case of trying my hardest for Leinster and if it worked out . . . thankfully it did. Declan always just said play as myself and don’t try and do anything I’m not comfortable with. Play the way you play – that’s why you’ve got here.

“I am quite nervous but I think it’s more the enjoyable sort of nerves rather than fear or anything. I’m just anxious to get out there now. It’s going to be a tough few days getting to sleep.”

Healy has been seen coming from a long way down the tracks and in every season since he made his debut in Donnybrook in May 2007 – against the now defunct Scottish side Border Reivers – has shown startling improvement.

It is usually difficult for fans to get too excited about props but the athlete in him makes his canvas more colourful. He has explosive pace and he can side step. The roller skating, pick-up pimping, graffiti artist Healy is a dude and also something of an animal in the gym. Is squatting 300kg not usually fatal? Just a year ago his main concern was getting on the right side of Michael Cheika and banking some Heineken Cup starts. But even then he wasn’t too strung out about it.

“I find I can usually take the excitement out of something, take it down to its real base and what you have to do to it,” he said. That cold logic should give some comfort to Kidney. “If you can do your job to the fullest, you don’t have to be angry while you’re doing it. Like, you don’t have to be angry in the scrum. Don’t have to be running around, looking to rip somebody’s head off,” he adds.

Still, today Healy sits at the top table at the team’s Killiney hotel base with the coach separating him from Brian O’Driscoll and a phalanx of cameras pointed towards him. He has the dumbfounded, bewildered expression of Alice after she surreally tumbled into wonderland.

The prospect of meeting Australian front row, Benn Robinson, Stephen Moore and the rated tighthead prop Ben Alexander in Croke Park would seem markedly less stressful than shaping a sound bite in response to being selected.

On the pitch at least Healy is familiar with big match choreography and the cheer of knowing that his responsibilities there bring an unusual feeling of wellbeing. Plugging into loud music as when he faced John Hayes last season and a refusal to get nervous is a set routine.

Excited, challenging, invigorating, yes, but nerves are unwelcome into Healy’s calculating rugby world.

“Not nervous, kind of very excited, nearly shaking before a game, have my music on loud and everything – and if it’s a big opponent this is a serious prop and a serious chance to have a cut off them. It just builds me up more. If I get nervous, it’s a bad thing because I find I’m doubting myself. It’s the enjoyment of the challenge.

“Some props will come in to target the hooker. Some will target me straight away. After one or two scrums in a match, you get a feel for what specific area they are going after to disrupt our scrum. You try to change or adapt to the situation to get the better of them. Everyone has helped me to progress. I would listen to everyone and take it in, then apply what works for me.”

Jono Gibbs, Ollie Le Roux, Stan Wright, CJ van der Linde, Reggie Corrigan and even former England prop Will Green have all contributed to his nurture as a prop and there are endless citations about his ability to work. When he was 12, Healy bought a set of weights and started a work-out routine that has evolved but never stopped.

“You can only get experience by playing and by working hard on and off the field,” he says. “The gym work is hard. It develops strength. Then you have to bring that to the real tough stuff in matches, like how to get your bind working properly, where to place your feet. It is not how testing the scrums are, it’s how many scrums there are which will take the energy out of your legs. That is why it is important to work on endurance as part of the strength training. At Belvedere College, he became the All-Ireland senior shot putt and discus champion two years in-a-row. An athletics coach will tell you that’s where his explosive power comes from. Watch how a shot putter generates body speed over a very short distance. Barcelona Olympics shot putter and Irish number eight, Victor Costello also had it.

Healy’s rugby had started in Clontarf as a seven-year-old and he also played there as a teenager. Initially a hooker at junior level, he won the Leinster Schools Senior Cup as a prop in 2005, bridging a 33-year gap. Ian Keatly played alongside that year, as well as Leinster squad team-mates Paul O’Donohoe and Eoin O’Malley. Keatly was capped in the summer tour but the last international honour to a past pupil before that was Fergus Dunlea in 1989. Healy continues the blue blooded lineage of Tom Crean, Karl Mullen, Tony O’Reilly and Ollie Campbell.

“I have no worries at all about Cian going out against Australia,” says Leinster scrum coach and former Irish prop Reggie Corrigan. “Maybe last year would have been a bit early. But the experience he has gained, especially last season against the likes of Julian White and Castro Gionanni . . . he won’t come up against better and I watched those scrums and he dealt with them very well. I have no worries about him at all.

“Cian is a really good pro, always looking for information. Coaches now will say that the onus is on players now and he buys into that. He’s always in the video room and he works very hard on that. He is unique.

“He’s massive, props don’t develop until they’re 27 or 28. At 20 years old he was immensely strong and he’s going to get stronger. For his age it is incredible that he has that power. And it’s not brute strength, he has speed with the power.”

Modest and easy spoken, Healy might be uncertain of his growing celebrity. He is self aware enough to feel uncomfortable with attention.

But when the whistle blows . . .

Cian Healy

Born: Dublin, Oct 7th, 1987

School: Belvedere College

Height: 6ft (183cm)

Weight: 18st (115kg)

Leinster Caps: 46

Points: 10 (2 tries)

Debut: v Border Reivers, Donnybrook, Magners League, May 5th, 2007

Ireland Caps: 0

Ireland A Caps: 8

Points: 0

Debut: v England Saxons, Welford Road, Leicester, A International, Feb 1st, '08

Ireland Under-20 Caps: 4

Points: 5 (try)

Debut: v Wales Under-20s, Liberty Stadium, Swansea, Under-20 Six Nations, Feb 2nd, 2007

Hobbies: art (painting), rollerskating, customised cars.