As a force of nature, as someone out of the ordinary, Cian Healy was building a reputation long before he even won a Leinster Schools Senior Cup medal with Belvedere College, never mind before he cut his teeth with Leinster and Ireland.
Eoin O’Malley was a team-mate on that exceptional Belvo team that in 2005 bridged a 33-year gap by lifting the Cup for the first time since Ollie Campbell captained them in 1972. He had first encountered Healy on opposing mini-rugby teams – O’Malley with Belvedere and Healy with Clontarf.
“He was already like this mythical character. People talked about this fellow ‘Cian Healy’ and you can imagine what a giant he was when you’re playing against him at under-10s or whatever,” O’Malley recalled this week, still sounding as much in awe of the child prodigy now as he was then.
“He was like a man against boys, and all the stories were going around about him, like pushing his dad’s car up a beach, and he had sandbags at the bottom of the stairs in the house and he’d lift them whenever he was going up and down. It was like superhero stuff hearing about him.
“Some of the stories probably grew legs but they’re probably better that way. As a kid, you were running a mile away from him.”
Much to the relief of O’Malley and others on the Belvo minis, they would become team-mates at school from the age of 12.
“Without really meaning to, he was just on such a different trajectory from day one,” says O’Malley. “Physically he was exceptional but ambition-wise he always talked big. He wasn’t the loudest person but in quietly going about his business, he set a big tone with the group the whole time”
Healy, his friends since childhood Paul O’Donohoe, O’Malley and Ian Keatley, were all part of the Belvedere team that surprised a Blackrock team featuring Luke Fitzgerald, Ian Madigan, Niall Morris, Vas Artemiev and Dave Moore by 16-10 in the final. Healy drew a line in the sand when running through Artemiev early on.
O’Malley was forced to retire at the age of 25 and admits he fell out of love with the game after two years of ultimately fruitless rehabbing. But on the day Healy is set to become Ireland’s most capped player of all time, O’Malley was planning to travel from Portugal, where he lives with his wife Lara and their three kids Bobby (six), Odette (five) and Lucia (two).
O’Malley describes Healy as a shy character and innately very giving, someone who would do anything for his close-knit circle of Clontarf friends and team-mates.
“He really has a heart of gold,” says O’Malley, recalling a big freeze 10 years or so ago when Healy offered to drive to the rescue of all and sundry in his jeep.
“You can talk about the rugby side of things all day and people see that, but they obviously don’t know him on that level.
“If I ask him about a young front-rower coming through he jumps into his protective skin. It’s a new role for him in recent years, like a mentor or big brother, and he enjoys it, and they all seem to have huge respect him.”
Is Joe Schmidt the right man for Australia?
While dedicated to his profession, Healy has always had an ability not to take rugby too seriously.
“He always has an outlet of creativity, whether it’s art or graffiti, or coffee or knife-making,” says O’Malley. “Some are quite obscure, but he always seems to master them. I don’t know what it is, but he has an ability to focus in on a skill and master it.”
Healy was always a keen painter and O’Malley recalls him presenting his brother Brian and wife Nina with “an amazing painting that he did himself” from their wedding day.
“He’s his own unique character and doesn’t become too pressurised by things, which I think is kind of unique in that world.”
Indeed, there is most definitely only one Cian Healy.
“He is an exceptional physical specimen,” said Joe Schmidt this week. “A bit like Andrew Porter, both those guys you have to lock them out of the gym as best you can, otherwise they will just become behemoths. One of the things with Cian is that he is so agile. He was so dynamic as a young man when I first got to Leinster.
“Probably a memorable moment, we were playing Clermont in a European semi-final to make the final against Ulster and it was in Bordeaux, in France. Clermont were at the height of their powers. We played a set play with Isaac Boss going around the back, the pass from Richardt Strauss going to Rob Kearney; there’s Cian on his shoulder trying to overtake him!
“He is that sort of athlete. He was lethal close to the line. The opposition couldn’t stop him, and we couldn’t get the ball off him. He would just grab it, roll his sleeves up and do the work. There are a few others [memories] but I’ll leave those. He can put them in his book.”
He is also Leinster’s most capped player and his debut away to Border Reivers way back in May 2007 is the stuff of folklore inside the squad, even in a 31-0 defeat.
“He absolutely tore it up,” recalls Jamie Heaslip. “At the video review on the Monday morning we all thought what the f*** is this prop doing?”
Of course, Healy has changed as a player and person over 20 years.
Heaslip, his long-time friend and roommate with both Leinster and Ireland for a decade, says Healy is deriving additional pleasure from sharing some special moments with his two sons, Beau and Russell, and his wife Laura. His sister Adrienne and parents Don and Caroline, who have attended nearly every one of the 350-plus games Healy has played in his career, will all be in the Aviva on Saturday.
Healy and Heaslip are godfathers to one of the other’s children, and Heaslip saw Healy as something of a generational player, who redefined the role of a prop.
“Athletically he was as quick as most backs over that first 10 or 20 metres,” said Heaslip. “His explosiveness is insane. You see him in the gym, the metrics he would be doing, his jump scores, his strength, all that, insane power through contact.
“Then he had pretty good footwork for a big man. You get the ball to Cian 5m from the line? Good luck trying to stop him,” says Heaslip of a prop who has scored 12 tries for Ireland and 32 for Leinster.
“He was a bit of a free spirit and that was embraced in [Michael] Cheika’s environment. We came from different backgrounds and weren’t all out-and-out rugby heads.”
When Healy first broke into the team he was into art and rollerblading, and has developed passions for coffee, knife-making and being a DJ among other things, as well as his dogs, Hank (a German Shepherd) and Ted (a pug), and is also, according to Heaslip, “an unbelievable man on the barbecue”.
But all the while, what a player, and what a roll of honour. There have been five Six Nations titles, including two Grand Slams, as well as four Champions Cups, one European Challenge Cup and seven Pro12/14/URC titles, plus that Leinster Schools Senior Cup.
On the Wednesday in camp before the Argentinian Test, when Healy would equal O’Driscoll’s record, Andy Farrell hosted an internal tribute night for him, which included a host of personalised video messages.
“He deserved all the plaudits he got, because although he’ll have hated it,” says Heaslip, laughing, “he deserved every bit of it, and if he doesn’t go back into rugby after playing, you probably won’t see a lot of him, He’ll follow his other passions and spend time with the kids and doing the family thing. Such is the guy.”
Healy’s physical and mental resilience have also been tested to the limits by injuries that might have finished other men, the badly damaged ankle at the outset of the Lions tour in Perth in 2013, the nerve damage following an operation on a disc that severely threatened to end his career and, cruelly again, the knee injury in Ireland’s last World Cup warm-up match against Samoa in Bayonne.
Yet he turned his hand to tight head and even as a hooker again. But for this, and Ireland retaining 15 players after both Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher were injured by the 48th minute in Murrayfield, Ireland would probably not have won the Grand Slam two seasons ago.
“It’s a game that grinds you down and you’ve got to be on top of all the stuff that people don’t see, in the training grounds but at home as well,” says Heaslip. “He has his own gym at home, a cold pool, a sauna, his recovery boots – he’s all over it 24/7 – as well as being a very hands-on dad in latter years.”
And assuming that role as prop mentor is typical of Healy.
“That’s testimony to the guy. Loyalty is a big thing to him and being part of something and helping others out. He’s a soft soul but his emotional intelligence is really high. He has an acute sense of what’s the right thing to do for people and the group.”
Healy is also good fun to be around and on a night out, even if there’s been less of those in latter years and, accordingly, he is a very popular team-mate.
“He’s seen it all, from Leinster pre-success to being part of it, a bit of a lull, success again. He’s one of those guys, like Mal [O’Kelly] was to me, where people will be saying 10 years from now: ‘Oh, I played with Cian Healy’.”
Heaslip adds: “He loves rugby, but rugby doesn’t define him. When all is said and done, I hope he stays involved in rugby. I think he’d be an excellent scrummaging coach, similar to John Fogarty.
“But at the same time it wouldn’t surprise me if Cian goes: ‘Ah, that was great and now on to life after rugby’ and does whatever he does.”
Cian Healy: A career in numbers . . . so far
Ireland: 133 caps (currently joint highest with Brian O’Driscoll and 10th highest in world rugby). Debut v Australia, Croke Park, November 2009, 20-20 draw).
Leinster: 282 appearances (a record). Debut v Border Reivers, May 2007.
Champions Cup appearances: 112 (a record).
Honours
5 Six Nations titles, including two Grand Slams – 2014, 2015, 2018 (Grand Slam), 2023 (Grand Slam), 2024.
4 Champions Cups – (2008-09, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2017-18).
1 Challenge Cup – (2012-13).
7 Pro12/14/URC titles – (2007-08, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21).
Leinster Schools Senior Cup winner (2005).
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
