Not in Dan Sheehan's mindset to bemoan heavy workload on World Cup stars
Dan Sheehan during Leinster Rugby squad training at UCD in Dublin. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
Preparations for last year’s Rugby World Cup began on June 18th when Andy Farrell’s players reported for duty in Dublin. The season will end 13 months and one day later when the national side faces South Africa at King’s Park Stadium in Durban in the second of two summer Tests.
As a schedule, it is as long as it is ridiculous and it’s one that rips to shreds any semblance of worth in World Rugby’s declarations about player welfare. Ireland’s players can’t be immune from the strains, even if they are spared by the IRFU the flogging common in other countries.
This campaign really kicked into gear with a warm-up win against Italy at the Aviva Stadium in early August and 43 weekends have followed since. Of the players Farrell brought to France last autumn, Jack Crowley has togged out the most times between club and country. He has featured 28 times in total.
Of the 15 with most games under their belt, 11 are forwards and these are the players more exposed to the wear and tear of so many shifts. Dan Sheehan is up there near the top of that list with 25 ‘caps’ to his name as Leinster brace for a URC quarter-final against Ulster this weekend.
There is no hesitation in going again.
“We’re all well looked after in Ireland. We do get time off and you don’t play every game. Bodies are fresh, hungry for games. I think it’s an easy out to look at how long the season is and use that as an excuse for last week, or maybe a possible excuse if we were to lose more games, but it is the same for everyone.”
Not quite.
Leinster have most players high up on the list of games played in 2023/24. This is hardly a surprise given the bulk they habitually supply to the national team. Munster are well represented too while Connacht have only one in the ‘first XV’ and Ulster none at all.
Games are one thing, of course, minutes another. The majority of Sheehan’s appearances have come from the off but he has at least an able deputy in Rónan Kelleher and both were on duty last weekend against Connacht, just six days after that loss in London.
None of it feels like any hardship to him.
“I grew up playing rugby because I enjoyed playing rugby. I enjoyed the Saturdays playing matches. I always remind myself that it’s not a job for me. I would be playing rugby no matter what, just playing games. If I ever got to a point that I was giving out about playing a match I know that there would be something wrong with my mindset.”
Sheehan isn’t one to dwell on things. While Robbie Henshaw spoke of an “obsession” with winning the Champions Cup, the hooker spoke prior to the European final about his ability to switch off from rugby once the day was done.
That said, he was grateful for the 27 minutes banked against Connacht last Friday.
“I really enjoyed the game against Connacht. Got a bit of frustration out. Gave me something to focus on straight away, which was nice. So it’s good. We took a lot of learnings from [Toulouse]. It would have been easy to brush over that and forget about that.
“We did a good debrief on it and turned our focus on to Connacht and sort of just stripped it back to basics. Now looking towards next week Ulster are the team to beat. We’ve lost twice to already and we have to be on the top of our game.”
(28) Jack Crowley; (27) Tadhg Beirne; (26) Caelan Doris and Ronan Kelleher; (25) Dan Sheehan, Josh van der Flier, Finlay Bealham and Conor Murray; (24) Ryan Baird and Jeremy Loughman; (23) Joe McCarthy, Jamison Gibson-Park, Andrew Porter and Craig Casey; (22) Jack Conan, Tadhg Furlong and Robbie Henshaw; (21) Bundee Aki, Stuart McCloskey and Tom O’Toole; (20) Peter O’Mahony; (19) Ronan Kelleher and Iain Henderson; (18) James Lowe; (17) James Ryan; (16) Rob Herring; (15) Ross Byrne and Garry Ringrose; (12) Jimmy O’Brien; (11) Mack Hansen; (8) Dave Kilcoyne.
*Johnny Sexton and Keith Earls retired after the RWC
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