Here’s to you, monosyllabic John

TUESDAY is very important day in Irish camp. It is the day of the team announcement. Fifteen players will happily step onto the bus, knowing they will play in Saturday’s international.

Seven players will be content to be on the bench but a little frustrated at not getting a starting place. And the remainder will go through the motions at training, knowing that when they return, they will be packing their bags and getting ready to make that lonely journey home. In the last nine years, only two players have walked into that team announcement knowing their place is secure. One, unsurprisingly, is Brian O’Driscoll. The other is the less flamboyant but equally outstanding John Hayes.

Hayes surpasses Malcolm O’Kelly’s record for Irish international caps today at Murrayfield. He has already overtaken well-known legends like Willie John McBride and Mike Gibson. Several of the players who start today began their international careers at the same time as him, but due to his durability and his willingness to play through the pain barrier, Hayes has shot ahead of his contemporaries in the race for international honours. And yet while he has been on the Irish scene for so long now, very little is known of the quiet, enigmatic, tighthead prop.

I’ve been in those Tuesday lunchtime conversations with Hayes. The team had been revealed to the media moments earlier and the scrum for interviews had begun. My bags were packed and I was grabbing a bite before heading home. Hayes was the only member of the starting fifteen present; all the others were sequestered by journalists, looking for a few tasty quotes.

I asked Hayes why not one reporter had requested his insight. He explained to me that he had a simple tactic to ensure that he never had to do an interview. No matter how convoluted or intricate the question asked was, he would always reply either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It drove the journalists mad and although he maintained a deadpan expression, Hayes got great entertainment out of it. Word quickly spread that he didn’t interview well. He had achieved his goal of making sure Tuesday afternoons would be free.

While Hayes conveys a public image of the quiet, serious man, his dressing-room personality is extremely affable. He loves the banter. Nobody who plays for Munster for several years can afford to be too sensitive. Some of the slagging between the players borders on being abuse. Hayes loves it; especially if the derogatory remarks are fired in his direction. His usual response is a wheezing laugh, similar to that of the cartoon dog, Dastardly. He is also capable of a dry one-liner that will shut his opponent up much to the delight of the onlookers. Every morning Hayes would greet me by wishing a ‘Good morning, John’, mimicking a posh Rochestown Road accent.

On the rugby pitch, however, Hayes’s jovial nature disappears. He is the ultimate professional and takes every training drill seriously. And he loves the physical contact element. The one moment that everybody dreads in training is when you have to collide with a tackle-bag held by John Hayes. You can’t budge his 20 stone bulk one inch and usually you lose all feeling in your shoulder for about a minute. Then the dull ache kicks in and the mild headache begins to throb.

As a big man, Hayes often finds himself at pillar in the defensive system. This is the position right next to the ruck. Often a scrum-half will throw a dummy and try to beat the pillar on the inside. Any scrum-half who tries this against John Hayes won’t attempt it again — on the presumption he hasn’t been carted off on a stretcher already. The Irish number three doesn’t move from his assigned role and relishes the thought of mangling an errant number nine. He is also no slouch around the park and has embarrassed several international wingers by stretching out a massive hand and hauling them to the ground when it appeared that they had a clear break on the outside. Hayes is also capable of doing damage to the opposition when he carries the ball, and nobody will forget his famous try against Toulouse in the 2000 Heineken Cup semi-final.

Tight-head prop is the most physically demanding position in modern rugby. To wear the number three jersey, you must possess incredible strength, power and endurance. Every time a scrum engages, the tight-head bears the brunt of the impact. It is not a position for the faint-hearted. Injuries are common and tight-heads regularly spend lengthy spells in rehabilitation. Bearing this in mind, John Hayes’s achievement of winning his 93rd cap today seems even more remarkable. His accomplishment is testament to his character, his innate farmer’s strength and his personal willingness to push through the pain-barrier for his country.

Let’s hope he makes it to the 100 and beyond.