Ben Healy thankful he arrived in time for Stephen Larkham's lessons

Healy looks on former World Cup-winning playmaker Larkham as both a role model for where his all-round game in the position needs to be and the mentor who can help him get there

Ben Healy: ‘I think if you want to get to the next level and be an international out-half and to go beyond that and dominate at international level, you’ve got to have all the strings to your bow.’

You do not need to listen to Ben Healy speak about his development as an out-half for very long for the name Stephen Larkham to be mentioned.

The 22-year-old who has taken on the responsibility of the Munster number 10 jersey in the absence of the injured Joey Carbery looks on the province’s senior coach and former World Cup-winning playmaker as both a role model for where his all-round game in the position needs to be and the mentor who can help him get there.

So one would expect the impact of Larkham’s recently announced decision to leave at the end of the season and head home to Australia to coach the Brumbies to hit home particularly hard on Healy and the other Munster out-halves.

Yet Healy is clearly a glass-half-full kind of fella, fit and fresh following a winning first European start against Castres before Christmas thanks to another desperate dose of misfortune for Carbery in the form of a fractured elbow.

Speaking ahead of Saturday’s short trip to Galway and a United Rugby Championship derby with Connacht, he addressed the exit of Munster’s attack coach next summer.

“You could view it as a disappointment but I’m just grateful I had him at this stage of my career, the timing couldn’t really be better for me,” Healy said.

“I came out of 20s year (2018-19) and he came into the club, so I’ve had him since then and I still have another six months to the end of the season with him.

“So I’m looking at the positives and I’m very grateful, and I can’t say enough about him on how open he is to sharing his knowledge and trying to get the best out of me on a personal level.

“He’s obviously a very good coach for the team and has been very effective, but on a personal level he’d bend over backwards for you in terms of just trying to get the best out of me and constantly pushing me to get better as well.”

As Munster attempt to regain momentum following the Covid-related postponements of URC games against the Bulls, Lions, and Leinster as well as rebound from their own outbreak of the virus, the coming weeks will put the squad’s resources to the test and challenge Healy’s ambition to be a more-rounded 10 in the Larkham mould.

“All the way up in my school development and underage with Munster and Ireland, I was very much a game-controlling out-half. Like, good core skills, good control of territory, those types of things and I think if you want to get to the next level and be an international out-half and to go beyond that and dominate at international level, you’ve got to have all the strings to your bow.

“You’ve got to be able to run, you’ve got to be able to control the game like I was doing but just have all the skills on top of that as well. So that’s probably where my game needs to go to, that I have all the strings to my bow.

“So working with guys like Steve, he was a perfect example, he could do everything depending on what way the flow of the game was going.

“So I think that’s where I need to go. I’m pretty happy with how I’m progressing, something like that you’re learning new things every single day on that. It’s just the finishing touches, really.”

Strong lines of communication in-game with the quality backline on his outside shoulder can only accelerate that process as Healy works on the variety of his game to bring them into play and get his team in behind opposition defences.

Working with his fellow aspirants to Carbery’s number 10 jersey can also be instructive.

Jack Crowley, who replaced Healy off the bench against Castres with 11 minutes to go for his Heineken Champions Cup debut, and 2019 Ireland U20 Grand Slam-winning squadmate Jake Flannery are, like Carbery, more naturally expansive playmakers but Healy is not looking to abandon the core strengths of his game.

There are also conversations with a number of people, including Munster’s consulting performance psychologist Caroline Currid and, inevitably, Larkham.

“It’s everything, it could be on the pitch, it could be chatting to Joey, Jack, or Jake, two of us having a conversation about what picture we’re seeing on this play and then bouncing ideas off each other.

“It could be sitting with Steve on a one on one, chatting about what he sees, what I see, it’s everything. So when I say mental, Caroline will obviously play into that and she certainly does, but I meant more the subtle things like where you’re looking, vision, things like that that are the finishing touches rather than radically changing a skill you’re performing or something like that.

“A lot of the time it’s strings to your bow and finishing touches at this stage of my career.

“A lot of it is just around mental stuff and what you’re looking at, rather than this basic skill completely radically changes.

“It’s more the subtle things on the pitch. We all have our different strengths. It’s the subtle things that you mightn’t actually notice watching a game but it’s the conversations you have during the week and that kind of stuff that is really the finishing touches, I would say.”