Tour to Argentina:Gerry Thornley talks to Keith Gleeson who returns to the Irish team after a 3½ year absence.
A sports career can be a fickle game and few have been more capricious than Keith Gleeson's in recent times. As he nears his 31st birthday next month, it's taught him to be more philosophical, evidenced by the way he sits on the ground and reclines against a wall in one of the spacious if spartan conference rooms in the squad's downtown, five-star hotel in bustling Buenos Aires.
"The sun is shining, so I can't complain," he says, reflecting on three previous Irish tours to New Zealand and Australia. "New Zealand is a lovely country but it's always wet and cold, and Australia has always been Perth, the opposite side of the country to where my family is, so neither has done me any good."
He knows the score. It's been three-and-a-half years since his last start for Ireland, and who knows when the next will be if he doesn't have a big game in the first Test against Argentina in Sante Fe on Saturday.
The equation for Gleeson out here is straightforward. Either he or Shane Jennings will most probably go to the World Cup as back-up/alternative openside to David Wallace, and each will most probably be given one start apiece here. Gleeson is the more proven and experienced, but Jennings has been starring in a vastly more convincing team amid a sequence of high-profile matches.
Gleeson played in three of Ireland's five games at the 2003 World Cup, but recalling how Eddie O'Sullivan opted for Alan Quinlan at openside instead of Gleeson for the pool meeting with Argentina four years ago, it's a particularly salient test of Gleeson's physicality, not to mention keeping some kind of check on Felipe Contepomi.
"They're a very proud nation when it comes to sport, when it comes to rugby, so we're expecting a very physical game. It doesn't matter if some of their players aren't household names, they'll still play the Pumas way, which is a big strong scrum and a big forward-orientated, mauling game, and you've got to take them on. You've got to beat them up in the areas of the game they think they're good at, and hopefully then put their backs - and they've some very gifted backs - under pressure. If you allow their forwards to get on top then suddenly you've got the likes of Felipe and co running at you, and that I can only imagine is not a pleasant experience."
Having broken into the Irish team five summers ago in New Zealand, Gleeson started in 21 out of 27 Tests until a broken arm in the win over Italy in 2004 forced him to sit out the Triple Crown coronation against Scotland a week later. He would miss the subsequent two Triple Crowns as well. He sustained a double leg fracture in pre-season training with Leinster the following August which extended his enforced absence to 18 months, in which time he has watched David Wallace, Johnny O'Connor and, on two isolated occasions, Denis Leamy and Stephen Ferris wear that number seven jersey.
He had a storming campaign last season, and compared to this point a year ago went on tour on the back of better form with Leinster, both individually and collectively. But Wallace was very much in situ and O'Sullivan's selection policy on last summer's tour of New Zealand and Australia confined Gleeson to just 20 minutes of the Hamilton Test and the last 10 minutes in Perth.
Gleeson would be missing one of his primary senses if he didn't feel the hot breath of Jennings on his neck, both here and domestically next season, and in contrast to Leinster's difficulties, Jennings, along with Leo Cullen and Geordan Murphy, has benefited from the Tigers' high-profile trophy assault on three fronts. Last Sunday's Heineken European Cup final was a game too far, but Jennings has flourished amid Leicester's superior tight five, squad strength and structures.
Acknowledging that collectively and individually, Leinster need to look at themselves and figure out what they did wrong in a disappointing Magners Celtic League run-in, Gleeson concedes last season they caught teams like Toulouse by surprise. "In a lot of the matches we won we played relatively poorly for 60 minutes but managed to turn it on for 20 minutes when we blew teams apart. And I think that hid a lot of our inadequacies for a good part of the season. I guess it was after the Wasps game we realised we weren't consistent enough throughout our games. The problem was that we lost momentum at that stage."
Nor was he "over-the-moon" with his form. "I guess that's why it's refreshing to come somewhere like here. It's a different atmosphere, with different opportunities and that's often helpful and stimulating in a lot of ways. As one of the other players said when asked the other day: 'Do you feel tired?' He quite rightly answered: 'well, I'm playing for my country this weekend. I don't feel tired, trust me.' These are wonderful opportunities and moments you always cherish, and for everyone who is playing this weekend, you've got to make the most of the opportunity you get."
Speaking like one of the three or four experienced Test players cum potential leaders in this team, he speaks of the virtues in playing as a team, and no matter how his career pans out from Saturday onwards, takes pleasure in knowing he picked himself up from his bootlaces. "I guess wherever rugby takes me I'll always be proud of that. Maybe I haven't had the breaks since then but hey, you can only play as hard as you can, and let it all unfold in front of you."
