Try-hero Heaslip glad to hit bookies

WITH money riding on the outcome, Jamie Heaslip had but one option when a scoring opportunity presented itself at Croke Park on Saturday.

Heaslip could have done the selfless thing and sent supporting hooker Jerry Flannery in for the glory of scoring the opening try.

However, Heaslip was having none of it and opted instead to ensure his mates received a decent pay out from a well-known bookmaker, who laid the number eight to score the opening try of the match and explained: “I’m kind of greedy, I like scoring myself. I think there was good odds on me to score the first try and some of my mates had a punt on me, so why not.”

In the overall scheme of the game, the Heaslip try was the highlight of a very poor encounter. Yet, individual glory wasn’t high on Heaslip’s agenda; his concern was more that Ireland got their Six Nations challenge up and running.

“We haven’t really looked at France yet, we were just worrying about getting over this game and getting a couple of creaks out of the team. We were a bit all over the place, especially in the second-half when we lost our shape a little bit.

“I don’t know what that’d be down to – maybe the fact that there was a load of kicking in the game and it was hard to get a bit of momentum, or maybe it was just down to ourselves losing our shape. We were pretty happy with how our scrum and lineout went and we’ll improve on those other things and correct a couple of others before next week,” he said.

Heaslip was pleased for a number of colleagues, highlighting what he described as a very good day for the front rowers. “I thought Cian (Healy) and (John) Hayes did a great job. Tom (Court) came on then and did a good job too. He forced a penalty. I think the front five did a great job and the back row did what we could in the scrum. But it was a great effort from the pack. A lot of people had been saying some stuff and I’m not so sure if they can say that now,” he said, reserving special mention for newcomer Kevin McLaughlin.

“I think Kev did great, he flew around out there. The only thing I said to him before the game was to keep doing what you’re doing and that’s what he did. He’s a big enough and bad enough boy, he knows how to do his job and he did that.”