Heaslip to be rested by Leinster after packed programme
More will be known for sure about who is and isn’t available to the four provincial coaches as teams are named approaching the weekend’s action but strength in depth will clearly be a buzz phrase around the country for the rest of the month.
The Leinster and Ireland number eight is, for one, on a “booster week” and will play no part in his province’s PRO12 trip to Edinburgh on Friday. Christmas Day will be spent in London which suggests zero input on the 28th when Ulster visit the RDS.
Heaslip’s next engagement, like so many of those frontline internationals who featured in the Heineken Cup this last two weekends, will be in the form of the three-day camp organised for the national side this weekend.
That apart, the days are his for now.
Yesterday saw him in Dublin’s Merrion Square to promote GOAL’s attempt to run a world record 120 mile challenge across seven countries this festive season and rugby was clearly the last thing on his mind.
Queries as to whether he was any closer to deciding whether he would play his club rugby in Ireland or abroad next season were dismissed with silence and a smile. So too were any number of what appeared to be less touchy subjects.
Surprisingly then, last weekend was not among them.
It was Heaslip’s spill which allowed Jamie Elliott hare free for Northampton’s late try, depriving Leinster of an unlikely win and, with it, even the solace of a bonus point in what was a frustrating Heineken Cup encounter.
His thoughts at the time?
“I didn’t execute,” he replied flatly. “I knocked it on. He ran the length of the field and scored a try. How would you feel? It wasn’t exactly a punch your fist in the air kind of moment, you know what I mean?”
Most players talk up their appetite to right those wrongs as quickly as possible but not Heaslip. The break, he insists, is welcome, which is probably understandable for a man who spent so much of the summer Down Under. Heaslip has long been one of the more durable of Irish players. It was that way last season when he was a constant presence as his Leinster colleagues were injured and dropping like flies and it has been much the same this time round. Seven of Leinster’s 14 games have already been banked and he played all three of Ireland’s November Tests. Not once in those 10 appearances did he leave the field before the referee called a halt to proceedings.
It is an admirable trait for a player who is reportedly being courted by more than one lavish French suitor but you wonder how that reputation would survive if he were to swap mid-winter breaks for a weekly diet of Top 14 warfare.
“It’s part and parcel, it’s our job,” he said of his fitness. “I like playing 80 minutes, I’ve got a good engine and try and keep myself in reasonable shape, to stay fit and healthy and just clip away.
“The season just goes way too quick. It’s already Christmas. Next thing you know you’re into New Year’s, the next round of the Heineken Cup, Six Nations and then knockout stuff as you’re at the business end of the club season. It just flies by.”
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