Cian Healy's loss is Jeremy Loughman's gain as real work starts now

RULED OUT: Cian Healy of Ireland after sustaining an injury during the Rugby World Cup warm-up match against Samoa. Pic: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

One man’s difficulty and all that. Cian Healy’s should have been the seventh name listed when Ireland’s 33-man World Cup squad was revealed by team manager Mick Kearney, forwards first, in the Shelbourne Hotel Sunday afternoon.

Instead, the script skipped from Tadhg Furlong to Iain Henderson, Healy’s omission facilitating the presence further into the roll call of Munster’s Jeremy Loughman who was called into the wider collective just over ten days ago as injury cover.

There was always going to be a sliding doors moment. Here it was.

Loughman had got the call on the back of concerns over Dave Kilcoyne but the shifting sands that define these nervy days in limbo saw the latter show enough in fitness terms and Healy fall victim to a calf injury against Samoa in Bayonne on Saturday night.

“He hasn't [made it],” said head coach Andy Farrell. “He's just had a scan as we got off the plane and he'll be out for a spell of time that won't be right, unfortunately, for Cian and for us, certainly for the start of the competition. We'll see how his rehab goes during it, you'd never know towards the back end if he could be a replacement or not.

“It's devastating isn't it? That's sport, that's life, that's rugby. Cian's big enough and old enough and experienced enough to be through these type of things before, I remember in 2013 on the Lions he got injured early and had to fly home. He's experienced something like this and understands that these things happen. He's devastated as we are for him.” 

Squad announcements are odd occasions.

The anguish and disappointment expressed over those players omitted when Vera Pauw named her Republic of Ireland squad for their World Cup earlier this summer set a strange and sombre tone that took far too long to dissipate ahead of their odyssey in Oz.

This wasn’t near that but it was a low-key affair completely overshadowed by the fact that news of Healy’s diagnosis – a five-to-ten week rehab that may yet facilitate some involvement in the knockout stages – landed just minutes before the conference started.

Any semblance of forward-thinking and positivity was only nixed again by the presence before the cameras of Johnny Sexton for the first time since his three-match ban and the inevitable raking over of those old coals in the 22 or so minutes allotted.

Healy was one of six men released from the collective, the veteran joining Diarmuid Barron, Tom Stewart, Cian Prendergast, Ciarán Frawley, and Jacob Stockdale on the outside looking in as the squad departs for France on Thursday lunchtime.

“It's obviously difficult because you're shattering somebody's dream, but I would hope that through all campaigns you don't let bad news become a shock,” said Farrell who informed the unlucky few prior to Saturday’s game against Samoa.

“You're constantly giving feedback to them, to let them know where they're at and players are not stupid. They've always got a sense of where they're at along the way.

“What I would say is that the reason it is difficult for myself to tell those five players the other day is that they made it very easy for me, their understanding that they're all team players. There's no selfishness in the group.” 

Further changes will surely be afoot somewhere down the line.

As it is, Ireland will have a handful of players - Dan Sheehan (foot), Rónan Kelleher (hamstring), Kilcoyne (hamstring), Jimmy O’Brien (clavicle), Jack Conan (foot), and Robbie Henshaw (ankle) - suiting up with their health somewhere short of 100%.

The announcement caps a pre-season stint that stretched to 70 days, sucked in 43 players and ended with an 18/15 split between forwards and backs. Others have opted for the 19/14 ratio but Farrell is confident in his thinking and backing his team’s versatility.

Healy’s loss is all the greater in that sense given his ability to cover tighthead, loosehead, and hooker although Farrell stated that Kelleher could have played last weekend and that Sheehan’s recovery is ahead of schedule.

As it is, the Six Nations and Grand Slam champions will travel to the continent with nine front rows, four second rows (including two able to work on the blindside) four specialist back rows, six half-backs, and four centres.

All told, there was nothing in the way of a curveball.

Keith Earls and Stuart McCloskey started the summer in the possibles bracket but all the indications were that both would fall the right side of the cut and the latter’s inclusion shows that versatility certainly won’t count for everything in France.

Ireland make the trip on the back of a record 13 wins on the trot and with a settled squad and staff. If their warm-ups didn’t deliver the rhythmic rugby Farrell had demanded then they remain in a position that so many others would die for two weeks out.

“Yeah, we're happy with the preparations. We've had a great summer for all sorts of reasons. We've got ourselves to a starting point and a lot of work got us to the starting point. We're the lucky ones that get to chase the dream… 

“We're the lucky ones that get to chase the dream for the wider group and the nation itself. If we can't get excited for that and the first game against Romania we're in the wrong job. I think we're in a great place, ready to take this challenge head on.”