Jamie Heaslip urges Irish players to ‘enjoy moment’

Jamie Heaslip has challenged his Ireland team to forget the scrap for World Cup places and get on with their jobs when they face Wales at the Millennium Stadium this afternoon (2:30pm).

Countdown commences today in Cardiff with head coach Joe Schmidt needing to reduce his playing personnel from 46 to 31 by the end of the month, leaving his squad members with just three chances to prove their worth in Test match scenarios.

The first of those comes today against Wales with both Schmidt and rival coach Warren Gatland sending out teams full of players eager to grab the opportunity presented. Today’s captain Heaslip, 31, has been in this situation before, missing out on selection in 2007 and then making the plane for New Zealand four years later, but not before seeing fellow back-rower David Wallace suffer a career-ending injury in the final warm-up match in 2011.

“I’ve been in a situation where I’ve trained for a World Cup and not gone, and I’ve been in a situation where I’ve trained and gone, so I’ve experienced both outcomes,” Heaslip said yesterday on the eve of the game in which he will win his 73rd Test cap and surpass Wallace as Ireland’s most-capped back rower.

“And I’ve also experienced seeing someone who was on the plane, playing the last game and coming to him in the changing room and he’s just had a career-ending injury.

“So I’ve kind of seen a lot of different sides to what might be, and the only thing I can tell people is to just live in themoment.

“Because its, buts and maybes are great things to talk about off the field, but on the field it’s all about the now. It’s a bit up in the air, but that’s the way you have to live it, and then that’s how you enjoy it.”

Heaslip cited NFL superstar Peyton Manning’s phrase about pressure in addressing how best players should deal with the World Cup selection issue.

“I read a great phrase, I think it was Peyton Manning, I’m paraphrasing: ‘pressure is something for people who are unprepared, who don’t know what they are doing’.

“So a lot of lads can take all that (World Cup worries) away, just hammer down their knowledge and know exactly what they have to do and just go out and play. They’re good footballers. That’s why they’re here.”

As for surpassing former team-mate Wallace, the Munster legend who suffered his career-ending knee injury against England in Dublin four years ago, Heaslip was clearly emotional when he said: “I got told that and, in a weird way, I was a little bit gutted; a little bit sad, because I hold Wally with particularly high regard, as a player and as a bloke, but as a back-row guy as well. I was a bit sad that I passed out one of my idols.

“It’s cool obviously, on one side, but I think Wally was probably one of the best, if not the best, back-row player I’ve ever played with or against, and probably the best who played for Ireland.

“He’s just awesome, absolutely — ball carrying, defence, work rate, the full package really. Bar his lineout ability, maybe ... I can take him on that!

“But otherwise it was a bit bittersweet hearing that, to be honest.”