Captain Heaslip plays it cool

Declan Kidney didn’t have to announce his team yesterday to signal Ireland’s changing of the guard.

The sight of Jamie Heaslip sitting to his right and Richardt Strauss to his left did that for him.

One is the new captain, the other a new cap whose route to this juncture will be replicated again and again in the years to come if the IRFU’s special player project continues to attract non-native talent of such quality to these shores.

Strauss could hardly have envisaged making his Ireland debut against the Springboks when he started to throw an oval ball around the fields of Bloemfontein, but Heaslip’s elevation is a natural step for a man who first wore an armband on behalf of the Newbridge College under 13s.

He found himself in Tesco on Baggot Street when Kidney rang with the news of his elevation. His first instinct was to pick up the phone and ring his parents and his father was ready for the call.

“The first thing he said to me, he goes, ‘congratulations on your captaincy but I’m still a colonel, so I pull rank’. They were literally his first words so I was put back in my box then.”

Richard Heaslip’s career in the army has coloured the number eight’s entire life. He was born in Tiberias, Israel during one of his dad’s overseas postings and waving his old man off to places like Kosovo and Cyprus allows him to keep rugby in its proper perspective.

“It’s probably why I’m able to compartmentalise things a bit, deal with rugby as a job as such and then step away from it afterwards. That’s how I saw dad do it. He would be the ultimate professional in what he was doing, then step away from it and be the family man that he is.”

Now 28, Heaslip has been afforded any number of other exemplary role models from which to learn during his time as a pro, having played on teams led by Brian O’Driscoll, Leo Cullen and Paul O’Connell.

Of course, it is the absence of such leaders and Rory Best that has allowed him assume the captaincy of an Irish team whose age profile and number of collective caps earned has plummeted to such an extent that only the new skipper and Gordon D’Arcy have played 50 times or more.

“I’ve said it before when asked, there’s definitely leaders on the field,” he said.

“I know that Rory, Paul and Brian aren’t around this weekend but there’s other great leaders in there who can guide the game around the pitch, take it on and aren’t afraid to voice their opinions during meetings or on the field.

“We talk about having ownership of the jersey and that’s what we’re going to do on the day. That’s the main thing, that they all want to, as a group and a collective, be able to come into the changing room afterwards, take the jersey off and put it up on the hook and know you’ve done the jersey proud.”

How will it change him? It won’t.

He’s a vocal presence in the Leinster and Ireland changing rooms anyway and when he isn’t talking, he’ll cover his ears with those oversized cans of his and let the tunes wash over him pre-game, just as he always does. Autopilot, as it always does, will kick in once the anthems are over and the action gets underway.

His main concern is that he doesn’t curse when giving the traditional captain’s speech at the post-game banquet and upset his mum but he will earn all the brownie points he needs if he can build on his record at Leinster where he has won all 12 fixtures as the stand-in skipper.

“I was hoping to avoid that,” he laughed. “No pressure there. I got a nice text off (Leinster chief executive) Mick Dawson about it, ‘no pressure regarding the record’. But, look, I’m not too worried about the outcome.

“I’m more worried about the process of it and the little jobs, breaking the game up into five-minute segments. The first five/10 minutes worrying about our launch plays, our set plays and if we look after the small stuff the big stuff will take care of itself.”