Cian Healy: ‘Come the end of my career I’ll count medals, not caps’

“Any game is a buzz,” says Irish loosehead prop Cian Healy for as long as anyone can remember. He does not say the words with great enthusiasm, but this is at the heart of what keeps him ticking.

The next game against England is potentially one more Ireland cap, another subject he’d happily leave to rest. Healy is one short of Ronan O’Gara’s 128 Irish and a few shy of Brian O’Driscoll’s record of 133.

For those who look at the numbers, especially among the 10 Irish names in the thin air of the 100 caps zone, Healy sits like a latter-day Edmund Hillary eyeing a summit he would prefer not to discuss.

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Are you happy to do this for the foreseeable future, he is asked. “Yeah,” says the prop leaning forward on the table, a pair of biceps consuming all the space. “I’m just trying to make use of the minutes I get. Ports [Andrew Porter] is a physical freak and he’s being used as much as possible. And I get that.”

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Questions are hurled. The answers are largely short. Sometimes one word. He has the air of a player who has seen it all 127 times. The mien is venerable, wizened professional, with 15 years at the Irish coal face and it gets to the point where you feel he might just give way and say, “pull up a chair and let me tell you about it kid”.

Instead, the pragmatism and discipline that has helped bring him back from injury and kept him relevant seeps through.

Healy is not on a count towards O’Driscoll’s name and number. Although, if he stays healthy and keeps contributing for another year it is a possibility.

“If I do that something will come to bite me,” he says. “What comes, comes. I take a lot more pride in what we have won with Ireland than caps. It’s something I always say, come the end of my career I’ll count medals, not caps.”

Noted. But he is also closing in on being the most capped prop in the world with a few ahead of him and one, Australia’s James Slipper, still playing. He has 134, the same as Wales’ Gethin Jenkins, who retired in 2018. In all, 87 players in world rugby have 100 caps or more, with Ireland’s Keith Earls, who retired last year after the World Cup with 101, the most recent Irish player to creep into the centurion club.

The world leader, former Wales captain and lock Alun Wyn Jones, retired before last year’s World Cup with 158 caps. But Healy’s stoic attitude of steady as she goes has earned the faith of Andy Farrell, although neither is oblivious to Michael Milne, who last year was called up to train with the Ireland squad following the continuing injury to Healy.

Milne, who marked his return from injury with two tries for Leinster in Cardiff at the weekend, was part of the Ireland under-20s group that won a Grand Slam in the 2019 Six Nations. Coincidentally, Healy was part of the Irish under-20s that won the first Grand Slam in 2007, where the Irish fullback that day was current England defence coach Felix Jones.

Things turn an odd way and for Healy it’s been another year of discipline and examination to keep going. He has drawn from it, especially coming through the injury picked up in Bayonne prior to the 2023 World Cup.

“Yeah, a lot, that was a huge amount of it,” he says about knowing his body. “I know I have the ability to recover from things a little bit quicker than most and then I also know a lot of protocols that I have to put in place when I am doing that.

“The missus [Laura] was slagging me off a bit and saying she’s never seen me so selfish. But that’s what had to happen at that time and yeah, weirdly enough it was a wildly enjoyable period. I got to put in a lot of hard work and I got a result personally.”

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Family, too, have been a sweet reminder of the rolling years. Laura and his children Russell and Beau have become part of the post-match on-pitch scene.

“It’s fun, something you can give them,” he says. “I didn’t get it when I was younger. I didn’t get the lads bringing the kids on to the pitch or the changing room. I thought it’s very much the workplace.

“But you understand it more when the team is built around family and around the importance of that. They came down the tunnel with a couple of minutes to go and they were all there for the end of it. Laura was giving out now because she missed my couple of minutes playing.”

The now is Saturday in Twickenham and the charm of drilling down into the engineering fulcrums and forces of the England scrum. The cap count and to equal O’Gara, he cannot wish away. Next year then is a work in progress. There’s no giving up.

“Yeah,” says Healy. “Working on it at the moment.”