Cian Healy wants this to be “the same as any other week”, but this isn’t any other week.
On Friday against Argentina, the 37-year-old will likely play his 133rd game of Test rugby for Ireland, something only Brian O’Driscoll has ever done. All things going to plan, he will be Ireland’s record appearance holder by the end of the month.
The numbers that make up Healy’s career are mind-bending.
Having become Leinster’s all-time appearance holder last month, he’s soon going to hold that record for club and country.
With 281 games for Leinster and 132 for Ireland, he’s played 413 games of top-level rugby across 17 years, winning five Six Nations titles, four Champions Cups, seven URC crowns and a Challenge Cup. His 112 appearances in the Champions Cup are a record, as are the eight finals he’s played in.
If you cut his appearances and medal haul in half, you’d still easily have enough for two genuinely great rugby careers.
As luck would have it, Friday’s game against Argentina will fall exactly 15 years to the day since his debut, when he played the full 80 minutes in a 20-20 draw with Australia on 15 November 2009. Along the way, he’s also packed down in Test matches at loosehead, tighthead and hooker, something almost unheard of in modern rugby.
His experience will come in handy this week, off the pitch as much as on it, as he looks to make it as low-key a build-up as possible.
“I would try and separate from this as much as possible. I kind of find any of the personal stuff adds more stress to my week than any of the group stuff,” he said, when asked about marking the occasion of his 133rd cap.
“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.”
While it might look dismissive when written down in black and white, it’s just part of the process. No distractions.
Those who have covered Healy in press briefings will know he’s a man of few words, and more than happy to give a boring answer if it means he can have a quieter build-up to his game.
When he spoke to the press after setting his Leinster record (below), it was the real Cian Healy speaking, as he let the guard down and allowed himself enjoy what was his night.
On that same night, he suggested that this is his last season in the game, but even heading into the final months of his career, he’s still feeling in tip-top shape.
“The body is good,” he says.
“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.”
While playing to the age of 37 isn’t unheard of, those that do often recite tales of the endless prehab and rehab that’s needed to get them out on the pitch, while other veterans are given extra days off on occasion to allow themselves keep the body ticking over.
Healy’s attitude is just to keep moving.
“Those players probably don’t spend enough time at home doing it then.
“Try and get out early, get going. It’s more what you do at home and in your spare time that makes it easy to show up and easy to warm up. 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 know? 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,” adds Healy (below).
That durability is just one factor that’s kept him in the game for so long. Patience and stub𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧ness also come into the equation, but the most important is enjoying it.
“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.
“It’s very different between Drico [O’Driscoll] and me. I wasn’t ever, and will never 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.”
