Cian Healy: Ireland need to play with a 'different venom' in Rome

Ireland need to beat Italy to hold up their end of the bargain next weekend. 

BOWING OUT: Ireland's Cian Healy dejected after the match. PIC: INPHO/Dan Sheridan

This week’s dawn brings with it an unfamiliar and unwelcome reality for some of Simon Easterby’s Ireland squad as the reigning champions get their heads around the French defeat and a curious job of work to come in Rome.

The older legion will have seen this before on the Test stage. For all of Ireland’s successes in the modern era, disappointments are inevitable, but there is a younger brigade that has known nothing only ultimate success in the Six Nations.

Jack Crowley and Calvin Nash have yet to play in a championship where Ireland did not finish top of the table. Jamie Osborne, Sam Prendergast, Thomas Clarkson, Gus McCarthy and Jack Boyle all made their campaign debuts in 2025.

Talk of a Six Nations threepeat and a second Grand Slam in three years will have buzzed around their ears like flies in recent months no matter how hard they would have tried to ignore it. Now the odds are that they will finish second best.

Cian Healy has been there and kissed that pig. Like Conor Murray and Peter O’Mahony, the prop was hoping to bow out with another title at the Stadio Olimpico next Saturday but the 42-27 loss to France has all but skewered those ambitions.

The job now, young or old, is to carry on regardless.

“A lot of the young lads don’t know this feeling and unfortunately the three of us do, we know well enough,” the 37-year old reflected at the weekend. “I don’t think you put an arm around people, no. You guide them through the process of getting over it and getting on with it.

“This is professional sport. You suck it up, you can’t feel sorry for yourself for too long. It’s a lesson you have to learn early in your career. Ideally they would have learned this another year down the line but they’ll be fine. They’re all strong professionals and they all have good heads on them.” 

Round five will make for an odd affair. Ireland are still in the hunt to take the title. It’s only four years and two attempts since Scotland returned from Paris with a four-point win so it’s not beyond the bounds of reason to think that similar can happen again.

Unlikely as that is, Ireland can’t even begin to think of what might happen in Saint-Denis. There’s no point in Scotland beating France if the Irish haven’t completed their part of the bargain and claimed the win required against Italy to force the issue.

Healy has been here before, in 2015, when they beat the Scots by 30 points in Edinburgh and then had to hope that England beat France by a certain margin in Twickenham, which they ultimately did after a heart-in-mouth finale.

“You just play with a different venom. You chase it and you try… Your script is there and it is to be played hard to. It’s the same as if it’s a proper title decider in your head. You have to go to war and win every single moment. It’s non-negotiable. That’s how we have to go and play.” 

Easier said, of course.

Healy made no bones about how low the mood was in the dressing-room after the weekend’s loss. Ireland had “bigger plans and bigger intentions” than that for the day and Healy felt they were in a good place in the first 30 minutes as he watched from the bench.

Others felt otherwise. France’s ability to withstand the most ferocious of sieges in the opening 15 minutes was ominous and the veteran accepted that the end result was a combination of Ireland ultimately falling short and France hitting imperious heights.

“I thought we had a lot of good phases and spent a lot of time putting them under pressure and taking energy out of their legs. You could see that at times but they dug in and found a way. That's huge credit because when we've put teams under that pressure they haven't been able to dig in before.” It’s not the day Healy, Murray or O’Mahony would have wanted on the occasion of their last appearance in a green short in Ballsbridge but, again, none of them need telling that rugby feels no obligation to the concept of fairytales.

For Healy there was the “nice” consolation of a try towards the end of his 137th Test cap. There was a time when he was more gruff and would have dismissed such talk as irrelevant but he has mellowed down the years and so there was perspective here too.

He had walked onto the pitch around three o’clock with his sons Beau and Russell. The boys are unlikely to remember too much of it down the line but, like their dad, they will have the pictures and the videos to look back on their part in “something special”.

“It was good, it was enjoyable at times. It was nice to be on the bench and have the opportunity to compose myself a bit after the anthems. That was tough. I'm sure it was tough for Pete going straight into battle.

“I had to go in and wash my face and come back to neutral after that. They're special moments and doing something with the two boys at the same time is nice but at the same time, next week is really the last week for us and we want to do it properly.”