Dan Sheehan: ‘Stand still and you’ll be swallowed up’
NO STANDING STILL: Dan Sheehan stands for a portrait during an Ireland rugby media conference at the Sport Ireland Campus Conference Centre in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
It’s been rare enough lately that anyone has had the chance to criticise Ireland. Even the latest, familiar World Cup quarter-final exit triggered more of a lament than the heavy metal rage of past expeditions.
If the Stade de France felt like a home from home for a time there then it is the performances in Dublin that have been the bedrock for so much of their success. The men’s national team has won 44, drawn one and lost just five of its last 50 games at the Aviva.
The last 17 have all been victories.
The chief criticism over that time? Probably the atmosphere. Theories have abounded. Too many day-trippers. Tickets that are too costly. Bars being left open after kick-off. Poor ‘entertainment’ choices before the games.
There’s no doubt but that all these are contributory factors and the squad itself isn’t, well, blameless for want of a better word. Win this well, and this often, and people become acclimatised to success. The frenzy that comes with peril is lost.
There are rare exceptions. Like, no-one rubbishes the atmosphere when the All Blacks are in town. Go figure.
All of this is human nature but it shouldn’t blind us to the wonders being witnessed and the need to appreciate what it is we’re seeing in D4.’Take Dan Sheehan. We see him lurch over for yet another try and we take it for granted. He doesn’t.
Sheehan didn’t always see this life for himself.
His parents threw him into all sorts of sports, like a human dart, in the likelihood that one or two would stick. He swam, played golf, football and badminton, and loved PE. Rugby hit the spot when he went to school in Clongowes but that was more a start than a finish.
He describes himself now as a teenager who “lacked confidence”. Sheehan saw himself as a decent club player who could do a job for Trinity in the AIL, but family and coaches spied more and worked on expanding his horizons. One chat in particular pushed him on.
“Stuart Lancaster sat me down when I was in the [Leinster] academy and started off like, 'I think you can go the whole way’, which, at the time, I was uncapped and just going through training at Leinster and playing AIL on Saturdays, which I was happy doing. Only too happy to do.
“So I sat down after that and I just thought, ‘right, how do I get there?’ So that was one thing that stands out in my mind. My old man would push me hard to be the best version of myself which… Well, he didn't push me much, he just reminded me that I could probably go to the next level.”
So now here he is, in the debate for the world’s best hooker. This is a 25-year old with eight tries in 23 caps, and 33 in 55 appearances for Leinster, and those ratios are better this season than they ever were before.
Somehow, he seems to be improving.
Leo Cullen gave him the armband for the first time for a URC game against Dragons on his return from the World Cup, but all this progress does is camouflage again the journey he has had to take in finding himself and in finding his place in the game.
Sheehan sees himself, as many others do, as an unconventional hooker. It took him time to grasp that but when he did he used it to his advantage by putting his own “spin” on things and standing out from the rest of the crowd.
The scrum was a huge part of this. He found the shift from schoolboy to adult rugby far from simple and pinpointed one tough day at the setpiece, against England in Twickenham two years ago, as a particularly difficult experience.
Ireland still won but the lesson was learned.
If the scrum requires him fitting in, and if his defence has probably been his main work-on in recent years, then it is his ability to attack from anywhere and everywhere, whether a pick and go or a run from out wide that makes him stand apart.
“You have to keep getting better. Individuals in teams are always getting better. If I stay where I am for a year I am going to get swallowed up. Something I'll always look at is to improve, how to improve.”
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