Steadfast Darcy aims to put a few more miles on the clock

Gordon D’Arcy can be an expansive talker, a man who thinks about a question and his answer before offering a considered opinion on the topic of the moment, but pre-season teaches you to treat every breath as precious.

Never has this been more apposite than right now, what with the province having introduced the particular horror that is an altitude tent into their daily grind at the state-of-the-art training complex in UCD.

So it was yesterday when, having played his part in modelling Leinster and Canterbury’s new European kit, the veteran centre dealt with queries as to how long he has left at the elite levels with the briefest of responses.

“One hundred percent don’t know,” smiled the 34-year old.

He knows how this goes. So do we. Brian O’Driscoll spent a full season and more getting asked that question. D’Arcy will face the same enquiry time and again between now and whenever so, with that in mind, talk turned to the here and now.

August is the time when the provinces unveil their new jerseys or promote season tickets by excusing their players from the grind of pre-season and nudging them front and centre at the media.

From the frying pan to the fire, so to speak, but D’Arcy can do most of it in his sleep.

This is his 17th season as a professional after all, a ridiculous statistic given the attrition rates in rugby these days, but such is the speed at which the game advances that even he is still experiencing some things for the first time.

That altitude tent among them.

The concept isn’t new. An Altitude Centre operates in Limerick. Rob Heffernan, Ireland’s world champion walker, sleeps in an altitude tent at times and D’Arcy has worn altitude masks in training with Ireland and the Lions in the past.

The tent, however, is one step deeper into physical purgatory.

“I’m spending a lot of time in there. It is one of the most horrific experiences of my life. It reduces the amount of oxygen in the air. It is like training at 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 feet.

“It is the equivalent of doing more volume of work in a more condensed period of time and the lactic burn is something special. It is tailored specifically. You can literally pass out if you do too much. It is shorter, sharper, more intense.”

The payoff is worth it. D’Arcy admits he can’t do everything he could four or five years ago and training at altitude eases the impact on joints that have pounded many a pitch this last two decades.

That said, there is no account taken for miles on the clock. Minimum targets need to be hit on the track, in the gym if a player is to be road-tested to an extent that makes him a desirable asset for the campaign to come.

D’Arcy is certainly that.

A consummate professional, his worth to Leinster and Ireland has only increased with the retirement of his midfield partner-in-crime and friend Brian O’Driscoll whose absence is currently being felt more in the dressing-room banter stakes.

September and beyond will tell us more about how much the Great One is missed where it counts most and it looks like D’Arcy will play his rugby alongside a number of 13s. It may be that he spends some time there himself.

He doesn’t foresee any transition period should that be the case. He drifted into 13 at one point during May’s PRO12 final when he got the defensive read wrong, but was still able to “put a shoulder” into his man who was finished off by Fergus McFadden.

He has, after all, had a box seat from which to study the best in the business for long enough.

“I’ll do whatever the coach wants me to do,” he said, as he has time and again in recent months. “We just lost a very influential player in Irish rugby, in world rugby, and we were very blessed to have him in that area.

“As (Leinster coach) Matt (O’Connor) says, he needs to divide up the resources in that area so I might be playing 12, I might be playing 13. I’m pretty open to that, pretty comfortable in both positions.”