Keith Earls enjoying Cup experience — minus sea urchin

Older and most certainly wiser, Keith Earls is content to listen to his body and delay the start of his third and possibly final Rugby World Cup by a week.

And when it comes to the Japanese delicacy of sea urchin, the Ireland wing is also happy to merely sniff rather than taste.

A week shy of his 32nd birthday, Earls has developed an acute awareness of what feels right and the boundaries that do not need pushing. On Ireland duty in Japan, these include both his knee and a sea urchin’s gonads.

Let’s take the latter first. ‘Uni’ is a dish considered a Japanese delicacy often found in sushi bars. It refers to the sea urchin’s edible parts which happen to be the organ in males and females that produces sperm or eggs. Experience, bitter experience, on tour here two years ago has told Earls to steer clear.

“I tried it in 2017,” he explained. “Myself, Dev Toner, and Cian Healy went off to a restaurant in 2017 and we didn’t wake up too well.

“(This time) I just had a smell off it, it wasn’t great. I think Cian Healy gagged while he was eating it but there’s some crazy stuff out there — but it’s great, you’d try anything once you know?

“On days off it’s hard trying to find a bit of food, you don’t know what you’re going to be eating and stuff like that. Weirdly enough, we’re in Japan and we haven’t eaten too much sushi. I suppose going into a game, two days beforehand, you don’t want to be eating raw food, sushi, beforehand.

“There’s a lot of downtime here. There’s people playing cards a bit more, and having the craic in the team room a bit more, we’re out of the way a bit more which is great, we’re just kind of in the sticks on our own, which is brilliant.

“There’s a few of the lads involved in getting us a few restaurants to eat in, tourist information and stuff like that. There are a lot of fines handed out if the restaurants aren’t great. Rob Kearney is in charge of fines. There’s a committee with Garry Ringrose… They’re the committee for the whole thing but there’s one or two snitches as well, who can’t be named.”

Earls seems to be in a very comfortable state of mind at this World Cup.

“Realistically, potentially, this could be my last World Cup as well, unless they play me when I am 36. You just learn to enjoy these things. As a young lad, at my last two World Cups, I was quite nervous.

“You do learn to appreciate it more when you get older. It’s a pity you don’t think like that when you’re younger, but that’s the joy of experience. It’s been very enjoyable and embracing the culture a bit as well has been great.

“I suppose, for me, I’m a small bit more relaxed because this is my third one. It’s a massive tournament, a massive competition which is played in front of millions but, you take the World Cup out of it, and you treat it as another match. It doesn’t feel any different.”

Earls sat out last Sunday’s Pool A opening-round victory over Scotland, preferring to listen to the signals the body was telling his brain, even if he was, according to Joe Schmidt, the sharpest player in training last Friday, the day the team to face the Scots was named.

He had injured his knee in Dublin against Wales on September 7 and pushed hard to ensure he kept his place in the 31-man squad that stepped onto the plane for Japan three days later.

There was a knock-on effect on arrival.

“The Scotland game was probably a couple of days too soon for me. If I had played, it would have been a massive risk. Thankfully I got through the warm-up, another running session and trained fully today.

“I think it was just a short enough turnaround between travelling and everything. It would have been a massive risk. Thankfully I got through and ticked all of the boxes and I am available for selection.”

And selected he has been, Earls set to win his 79th cap for Ireland this Saturday against Japan, although he will consider himself a little fortunate given that Munster team-mate Andrew Conway put in a top-notch, try-scoring performance on the right wing in his absence.

“There is a lot of pressure on (me) after the way the lads played at the weekend. It doesn’t surprise me the way he played. I am around him quite a bit, he is unbelievably professional. I see how he prepares for games, I see how he looks after himself.”

The same can be said for Earls.

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