Cian Healy: I was dying for a game and angry I wasn't getting the opportunity earlier

Healy scored his second try of the autumn in a seven-try to one hammering of Argentina as he made his 112th Test appearance

Ireland's Cian Healy scores a try that is later disallowed by the TMO. Picture: INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Cian Healy may have helped drive up the average age of the Ireland team that finished off Argentina in the last quarter on Sunday by several points but the veteran front-rower is relishing the opportunity to play alongside team-mates with more than 100 fewer caps.

Healy, 34 last month, and centre Keith Earls, five days his senior, were the anomalies on an Ireland bench that helped secure a 53-7 victory over the Pumas at Aviva Stadium, the replacement loosehead prop scoring his second try of the autumn in a seven-try to one hammering as he made his 112th Test appearance.

He was part of a team for which the average age at the full-time whistle was 24.1 but Healy would not have it any other way.

“It's class. It's deadly. I think it's so important to environments to see people coming through and see people getting opportunities.

“Go back to the beginning of November, I was dying for a game before I got the opportunity and angry that I wasn't getting the opportunity earlier, and that's the way it should be when the lads are coming through. If you're good enough, you're old enough, and they've certainly shown that.” 

That anger felt by Healy, who has had to settle for a place in the bench behind Leinster team-mate Andrew Porter, 25, on his switch back from tighthead to loosehead, underlines his desire to keep challenging for the number one jersey and did nothing to argue against that notion.

“Oh yeah, 100 per cent. At the end of the day you are representing your country, and it doesn't matter what number it is, if you get an opportunity to get on the field you have to be doing your best and push the lads on and put pressure on Killer (Dave Kilcoyne) and Ports to try and get that position myself. And that's going to bring them up as well, and we have to do each other justice. If you were to just lax off and not push people for that number one spot, then you're probably not going to end up in camp. That's the realistic part of it.

“So you have to push standards, and my desire to push those standards is the same as ever, and I'm loving every minute of what I do. So I'm not going anywhere.”