Heaslip appreciates need for rotation

Jamie Heaslip said he wasn’t long getting a taste of Puma power when he was unceremoniously put on his backside moments after coming off the bench in the first test against Argentina last Saturday.

Heaslip, more accustomed to starting games than coming on in the second half, paid the price for a moment of hesitancy in the opening clash in Resistencia.

“I got caught making a delayed decision, I was going to pass it behind Dev [Devin Toner] and I saw a guy shooting up, so I delayed my decision, saw a guy shoot up and the number 6 and 10 kind of stopped me in my tracks and the 10 got underneath me and put me back on my bum. It wasn’t exactly a fine moment in my career, but these things happen,” said the 30-year old.

Heaslip said coming off the bench gave him a greater appreciation of the role played by replacements — he himself has played 80 minutes 26 times this season.

“I know how vital a role people coming off the bench have in terms of standards and not letting that standard drop. I think if you look back at the Six Nations and with Leinster we scored a lot of points in the last 20 minutes of games.

“The Italy game in particular, our bench played a significant role in a game that determined we won the Six Nations. When I came on I tried to add to it, but I’m used to 80 minutes.”

He said it has been a whirlwind from Leinster retaining the Pro12 title and heading to Argentina less than 24 hours later but he is looking forward to Saturday’s test in Tucuman when he will win his 67th cap.

“It’s been intense, obviously we rolled out off the back of a pretty intense week and all the things that come with touring, travelling and staying in hotels.

“I was asked if I’ve seen anything and I’ve seen the hotel room, the training ground, hotel lobbies… which is a bit of a regret because we’re in such a unique country but I’m lucky that I’ve been here before on rugby tours. I’m sure it’s changed since I was last here in 2007.”

On the strength of their opponents’ back-line, Heaslip contended; They’re quite strong and fast off the line in what we call 10, 20, 30 — inside that first attacker, by the looks of the game last week, they have four guys stacked in there so that’s quite strong, they come off the line quite aggressively there and shut down that space.

“So we have to look at using that against them, I think we will probably look at the couple of line breaks they made, we let in some tries we probably could have stopped earlier on.”

But on the flipside he argued; “We also created a lot of opportunities (ourselves), we have to build on that and I think our platform for the backs to launch off was very good, so whoever is starting has to work hard to provide that as well.

“It’s just about building on it, it’s kind of like a back-to-back Heineken Cup week, when you play those games and you play very well in the first week it’s almost harder to go again the next week. But we got a good mix of patches of very good stuff, patches of stuff that’s not so good and really we’ve played better as a team, but we have very good passages to build on.”

Heaslip believes Ireland will benefit from this tour as the countdown to the World Cup begins in earnest. Three players; Robbie Diack, Rodney Ah You and Kieran Marmion, made their debuts last weekend and Noel Reid and Rob Herring could make their bow this Saturday. Heaslip reckons they need as wide a playing pool as possible to select from.

“We made eight changes from the last Test game, three guys got capped so it’s great in terms of building a squad going forward into 18 months from now.

“If you want a strong squad you want guys who are confident and experienced at international level, who can come off the bench at vital moments,” he added.