Heaslip all set for Friday night lights

Jamie Heaslip will quickly put his Ireland responsibilities on the back burner and concentrate on getting his Leinster campaign up and running this weekend.

The British & Irish Lion began his week with a two-day Ireland training camp at Carton House, the first such squad gathering under new national team head coach Joe Schmidt ahead of the November internationals.

With the camp now over, thoughts of the Guinness Series will have to wait as the 29-year-old Heaslip aims to make his first start of the season when Leinster face Cardiff Blues at the RDS on Friday night.

“My focus is hopefully getting selected on Friday,” Heaslip said. “I’m not looking that far forward. My focus right now is trying not to have a heart attack in the first 20 minutes!

“But we’re excited to get into the Guinness series. It’s an exciting time, there are three teams there ranked above us. So we know when that time comes it’s going to be a hard challenge, those three weeks on the trot.”

Heaslip was Ireland’s captain last season, a controversial selection by former head coach Declan Kidney, who chose to axe Brian O’Driscoll from the role at the start of what would be a rollercoaster season for the national team and cost the former Munster boss his job. Hampered by injuries across the squad throughout, Heaslip led Ireland to victory over Argentina last November, securing a seeded draw for the 2015 World Cup, but after a famous win in Wales at the start of the Six Nations campaign, Irish hopes unravelled as the casualty list continued to rise.

The campaign saw plenty of new blood introduced to Test rugby under the most trying of circumstances and the policy continued when Les Kiss took a young squad to North America during the summer to score Test wins over the US Eagles and Canada as Heaslip helped to backbone the Lions’ Test series victory over Australia.

Six months on from a first Six Nations defeat by Italy in Rome, Heaslip said he saw plenty of positives from a fraught campaign.

“A lot of guys got their first cap, got experience at that level last year,” he said. “I think that will stand to us. We’ve talked a lot about playing to the standard that the green jersey demands and training to that standard as well.

“And the more guys who get a taste of what it’s like to play in the green jersey during the summer and during the Six Nations, the more they see what is expected.”

Heaslip has been further encouraged by the two-day camp in Kildare which saw 42 players called into an extended squad to work with his old Leinster boss Schmidt, defence coach Kiss and new forwards coach John Plumtree.

“For me it’s much of the same (working for Schmidt), we were lucky to have him for three years previous to this so I know him pretty well. He’s going ahead with his business as normal, as far as I can see. It’s focusing on the detail and information, making sure everyone knows what they’re doing. I think everyone has responded well to it. I’m pretty sure the lads will say they’ve had a good time over the last couple of days.”

With his IRFU contract set to expire next summer amid speculation he may follow Johnny Sexton to France on a similarly big-money deal to a Top 14 club, Heaslip, however, was less committal about his future.

Sidestepping discussions of contract negotiations, he said: “When it comes to the business side of things, that’s why I have certain people around me to deal with it. That let’s me just get on with playing rugby, they sort it out.

“I don’t worry about it, I don’t stress about it at all.”

There was a similar response to the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the future of the Heineken Cup, although the three-time winner of Europe’s premier club competition said Ireland’s proud record in the event would remain a great legacy, even if it was replaced by an alternative, Anglo-French-led entity.

“What all the (Irish) clubs have accomplished in Europe, it’s there. It’s done. It’s not going to change anything.

“Obviously we want to be competing in some sort of a European competition. There’s not a whole lot the players can do about it, it’s down to people behind the scenes working together to get something sorted.

“It’s been a great competition and I have loved playing in it over the years. And I think the support it gets, especially from the Irish fans, is amazing.

“We’ve met Munster in the competition and Ulster, what would be a big derby game anyway, in Europe it just mushrooms. So we’ve had a great relationship with it but going forward, I know there’s a lot of talk outside but I can only focus on my first game, whenever that is.”