Cian Healy 'licking his lips' at prospect of Bulls clash in Loftus Versfeld

8 June 2024; Ulster head coach Richie Murphy, right, and Cian Healy of Leinster. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Cian Healy was one of those in the vanguard when the tournament we now know as the URC first set foot on South African soil.

Leinster and Zebre were the guinea pigs back in September of 2017 when the PRO12 became the PRO14 and the Isuzu Southern Kings and the Cheetahs welcomed their Irish and Italian visitors to this brave new world.

There were doubters when it came to this expansion. Still are.

Leinster were first up that Saturday afternoon with Leo Cullen’s side beating the Kings 31-10 at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. The real story was the backdrop with just 3,011 people lost in a ground that holds 46,000.

If the first steps were always going to be tricky then this was still a faltering start but, while the logistical difficulties and the wider wisdom of running a tournament across two hemispheres remain problematic, then the URC has found its feet.

The embedding of South Africa’s stronger franchises has solidified the offering on the field and the crowds have come out in force for knockout games south of the equator. Not least for the last two finals played in the Cape Town Stadium.

Another bumper audience is to be expected on Saturday when Leinster face Jake White’s Bulls at Pretoria’s Loftus Versfeld in one of the weekend’s two semi-finals, so Healy can look back seven years now and appreciate just how far the whole thing has come.

“It's added huge challenges to it and that's great,” the prop said of this South African expansion. “You want this league to be as competitive as possible and I think it's done that. It's been a success in that regard.” It hasn’t been without its issues for the boys in blue.

That win away to the Kings came after Jamison Gibson-Park and Isa Nacewa had been turned away at customs due to a visa issue. Healy himself was ordered off a plane on the way from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town due to a misunderstanding over use of a laptop.

This latest trip has been patched together at the shortest of notice after last weekend’s quarter-final win against Ulster in Dublin, but that was more of a headache for team manager Ronan O’Donnell than players who have all that stuff done for them.

“We just showed up at the airport, got chaperoned to South Africa,” said Healy. “It was handy enough in that regard. We lose one day of a training week, but most of us when we got here went over to the gym and flushed the legs out, got in the pool and stuff.” 

The front row veteran had missed Ireland’s summer tour to the country the year before because of injury, but he has been there a handful of times now with the club and that makes him more familiar with the surroundings than most of the squad.

Leinster have routinely sent over weakened collectives to that part of the world so that the majority of their front-liners could remain home and prepare for bigger games to come. That isn’t the case now. This is as big as it could be this season.

There is, Healy admitted, still something of a “sting” lingering from that Champions Cup final loss to Toulouse last month so the URC route offers the potential for silverware, a path of redemption and, in the task before them this week, a challenge of rare note.

Healy has been there and done virtually everything in the game of rugby but the prospect of facing a South African pack in such a legendary venue as the Loftus Versfeld is right up there in terms of boxes that any prop would want to tick.

“It's a great test. Any forward should be licking their lips. it's a proper physical test, you know? There's not going to be many tip-on passes played from them, I wouldn't imagine. Carries are going to go up the guts and it'll be a bit of me v you.

“That's a great test for us, how we can band together and deal with that. We hit in twos and threes, break them down that way, and that's a bit of a way where we'll try and take their legs, constantly shut the door on them when they try and come down the neck.”