Chatterbox Heaslip smiling like he means it

A CHAT with Jamie Heaslip is rewarding for all sorts of reasons, not all of them directly related to the next game, or even the last one.

You learn swiftly who the best table tennis player in the Irish rugby squad is (“we had to peel Luke Fitzgerald off the table the day of the Italy game, he was on it for about two hours”) and that Mick O’Driscoll and Malcolm O’Kelly are not men to face if you don’t have faith in the three of a kind you’re holding.

There’s mock-exasperation with last Sunday’s full-back (“Rob was worried he’d have a bruise on his face for the night out”) and an honest appraisal of how it feels to be stuck in a Roman ruck: “Castro(giovanni) and Parisse coming at you, you’re thinking ‘oh Jaysus, here we go’”.