Cian Healy on the brink of caps milestone but hoping to avoid fuss and focus on Pumas

HEADSTRONG: Cian Healy in the gym. Pic Credit: ©INPHO/Billy Stickland

For a man who considered the week of his 100th Test cap the worst of his career, Cian Healy will not be relishing his time in the spotlight at the Aviva Stadium on Friday night.

Yet recognition is what the loosehead prop is fully deserving of as he prepares to equal Brian O’Driscoll’s record of 132 caps as Ireland’s record appearance maker when Argentina come to town.

Though it took both men 15 years at the highest level to reach the accomplishment, Healy, 37, is quick to draw a distinction between himself and his former Leinster and Ireland team-mate, the former captain and three-time World Rugby Player of the Year nominee who is widely acknowledged as the best player ever to grace his position at outside centre.

The prop did not even bring the record up in conversation when the two met at a friend’s wedding recently.

“Like, It’s very different between Drico and me,” Healy said. “I wasn’t ever and will ever be the player that he was so it is separated in that immediately.

“I take pride in the durability and being able to show up. That’s something I do hold myself to a bit, not missing training sessions and enjoying the hard work of week in and week out, year in and year out. I have enjoyed that.” 

Healy’s ability “to show up” should not be underestimated given the serious injuries he has overcome to reach this landmark, not least the calf issue that caused him to miss the 2023 World Cup, sustained early in the final warm-up Test against Samoa in Bayonne.

The Dubliner does, nevertheless, decline to view his tally of Ireland appearances as an individual accolade worthy of acclaim.

“I haven’t looked at anything like that. I’m just trying to separate from some of that stuff. I wouldn’t be able to do this without medical teams and physios and rehab coaches that have put me through the wringer over the years. I could never say I have done something incredible without all those people.” 

He added: “I kind of find any of the personal stuff adds more stress to my week than any of the group stuff.

“Like 100th-cap week was probably the worst week of my career for how I felt but there was loads of nice things said and done. Whereas something like a Grand Slam weekend I can live it and thrive and enjoy it far better.

"I don’t know if I have, over time, built myself so much into ‘group’ and hating ‘personal’. I don’t know what it is. It’s where my mindset goes with it.” 

As a result, and having got his obligatory media appearance out of the way early in the week, Healy will spend the rest of the build-up to the Argentina Test trying to ignore the fuss and doing what he loves best, playing rugby.

His approach, he said, would be “hopefully the same as any other week”.

“I tend to try and take any stresses out of my week. If all goes well and I get included I will enjoy it as normal, try not to let anything build up.”

“I do love it and I suppose I am in a place where I can’t picture myself anywhere else and that’s a nice place to be because you can go through the years debating whether you should have done X, Y or Z but I can look at all of mine and say I was exactly where I wanted to be.”

All that experience has produced not just an athlete able to defy his years through diligent preparation but a person perfectly comfortable in his own skin.

“Just my mobility and looking after myself. If there is anything bugging me I don’t sit on it. I have a pro-active approach to it. All of that then works into a routine for me which winds me down for the evening, to get to sleep. There’s a whole combination of flexibility and working on my body, wind down and stuff.

“It makes you feel good. I don’t like walking around sore or having a stiff back or sore legs. You do that at night so you wake up feeling good. That directly knocks on to where my rugby is, so a positive on a positive.

“The body is good. When you come into camp you get a bit of extra time to work on your body and put on a few extra pieces of prehab or rehab or a small bit of mobility.”