There has always been a piece of Munster embedded in Keith Earls that has never dimmed. The shirt, the history and the landscape suited everything about him. Brought up in the shadow of Thomond Park, Earls ever moving away to mix with the aristocrats of Europe was never seen as a comfortable fit.
“Home comforts are great,” says the Irish winger.
Toulon or Montpellier and a restorative glass of local wine with lunch in the autumn sun is a constant, impossibly glamorous image of the Côte D’Azur and rugby’s place in the wealth belt in the south of France. But for the taciturn Limerick man, a more prosaic lifestyle has always seemed just so.
Earls tells the story of the arrival of the departing Simon Zebo. But it is also an account of himself and his harbouring of a conservative streak. With his back heels, fancy tricks, hair-trigger smile and irrepressible energy, Earls told Zebo that he didn’t like him when he first arrived on the Munster academy paddock. Too brash, too self-confident, too flamboyant, too not Munster.
“He was devastated,” says Earls. “A lot of fellas would have found it tough. But jeez I love him now. It’s a good cockiness. He isn’t too bothered about weights or anything like that. He just loves rugby. You’d do anything for him.”
As his other team-mates now play a delicate game of bluff and counter-bluff in their wage negotiations with the IRFU, forfeiting his chance to play with Ireland has never been a consideration for Earls.
Faithful
He is faithful to Moyross and Ireland, and the possibility of wearing the shirt would have been too much to give. Maybe, too, the flip side of creative energy is a more embedded sense of loyalty.
Still, the profiles of Peter O’Mahony and CJ Stander stay fixed on the horizon and will do so until the boardroom game is played out and falls with the consensus of mood around the place, if that can be read, that nobody goes anywhere.
"There is the Lions but playing for Ireland, for your country, is the highest standard," explains Earls, speaking at a Munster event in Lifestyle Sports. "The Six Nations is a massive tournament, the November internationals are always challenging when you get to play against the southern hemisphere. It's huge. It's a lot to give up to head away to France or England or wherever it is.
“And getting to play with the club I grew up loving. But sometimes fellas like a challenge and some fellas want to see if the grass is greener and that’s always in the back of your mind.
“I haven’t spoken to Peter or CJ but, yeah, it’s starting to creep in now that fellas are leaving the Irish provinces a bit more than we’d like. It’s a lot to give up to head away, wherever it is.”
The broken winger continues to play his own game of patience after a hamstring blowout. Torn while he was in the Ireland camp prior to the November internationals, it has kept him watching rather than playing – just as he was finding his game coming nicely to a boil.
Return
But Earls’s mood is good and his mind is now set on a return for Munster’s derby Pro14 League match against Leinster on St Stephen’s Day.
In the early stages of the injury it appeared that more damage was done. But the 30-year-old is healing faster than expected after scans showed the damage was confined to the muscle. Next Tuesday he will have been four weeks without playing.
“It’s great. It’s better than I expected,” he says. “Hopefully Leinster, yeah,” he adds, marking the bullseye in Thomond Park for his recovery date.
“I’ve just been getting up to full speed and working it [hamstring] under fatigue as well and passing it with flying colours,” he says. “I’m delighted it’s not going to be as long as I first thought. A grade two tear. First they thought the tendon had gone with it, which would have made it a lot longer. Luckily in the second scan it revealed that it didn’t tear.
“First game back against Leinster, there’s no better game to get your lungs going and get your physicality going again.”
Further out is the Six Nations and Earls has not given up on that. Since his muscle popped, he has watched Jacob Stockdale and Darren Sweetnam and Andrew Conway and Adam Byrne set out their wares on the wings and in the centre in Aviva Stadium.
After 62 caps he has seen change before. But his passion has never wavered.
“It would be great to get a few games in before the Six Nations and put your hand up,” he says wistfully.
