Gerry Thornleytalks to Keith Gleeson, who is back to his best after fully recovering from injury
One can only imagine the scale of Keith Gleeson's disappointment when he missed out on the World Cup, all the more so to a raft of number sixes when the one number seven in the Irish squad went into the competition with an injury. He'd have striven for a ticket to the Coupe du Monde 2007 like a man possessed. Yet, in the wake of that setback and soul searching, the old glint in his eye is back.
He's always believed that the years 28 to 30 should have been his peak but, now 31, injury did for the start of that cycle. He says he's enjoying playing rugby as much as ever, and takes pride in having recovered from a knee injury that might have ended the careers of others to play some of the best rugby of his career.
"Just after the last (2003) World Cup, I busted my leg. It took me a long time to get over that so I was looking forward to it. I was in great shape, I believed the hard, dry grounds of France would be a great place to be. That's life though, y'know. There's some things you can do and some you can't do," he reasons, meaning the ability to rewrite history. "I guess as you get older you think 'I'm not going to let things ruin my life' and take baggage home to my family."
Now in his seventh season at Leinster, Gleeson was encouraged post-World Cup by Michael Cheika's summer recruitment drive, which the flanker believes has given Leinster a strength in depth they've never had before. "One, it gets everyone on their toes and, two, they look around and think 'we actually have a good chance of doing something special this year'.
"Now, maybe that opportunity is gone," adds the realistic Gleeson quickly, "but there's no reason we still can't at least finish on a high by winning our next two games in Europe and hopefully, at the third attempt in a row, actually win the Magners League."
For the first time in Gleeson's years at Leinster, wags can now say Leinster's pack is better than their backs. There's no doubting their talent, but the backs haven't delivered this season, certainly not consistently. Looking at their make-up of side-stepping gamebreakers at 10, 12 and 13 as well as the wings, perhaps rather than over-complicate things there's an argument for using Shane Horgan as a battering ram up the middle early on to get them over the gain line, or use him ghosting in off his wing on to inside passes. Of course, they've also lost the best finisher they've ever had in Denis Hickie.
"Oh look, we rub it in every chance we get," smirks Gleeson.
Gleeson maintains that if you take out the Murrayfield performance in the Heineken European Cup and the second half in Toulouse, it actually hasn't been that bad, with big improvements in their set-pieces, forward drives, defence and away form. What's more, without playing well, Gleeson argues they could easily have been a score or two ahead at half-time in Toulouse had they not dropped some fairly basic passes.
"But that's the problem; when it counts you've got to perform as a team," he says of those two under-par performances. And what irks him most about that is that traditional European powers such as Biarritz, Stade Français, Leicester, three from Pool Five and of course two from Leinster's group will not be in the last eight. "A lot of sides are going to be in the quarter-finals who have rarely or never been there in the past.
"You need a bit of luck in this competition but you've got to take it when it come along," adds Gleeson, though he accepts the performance in Edinburgh was "abysmal".
"There's no doubt it's frustrating. Leinster's Achilles' heel has always been teams that they slightly look down their noses at we don't always perform that well against. If it's at home, but away from home, particularly when we've beaten them the previous weekend . . . effectively we shot ourselves in the foot that afternoon. You'd think we'd have learned from the previous year."
There's a lengthy discourse about the concession of penalties and the barrage of errors under pressure, with Gleeson repeatedly using the word "frustrating". He sounds as much like a fan as a player.
The net result is that they probably can't qualify, but their pride has seriously been wounded, both in Toulouse itself and last time out in Edinburgh. In unwanted, relatively difficult uncharted territory, Gleeson is pretty sure he and team-mates will have a mindset of: "We may be going down, but we're going to take as many of these guys as possible."
His contract expires at the end of this season but as regards his future, Gleeson says: "It comes down to two things. One, if I still believe I have the ability and the opportunity to play for Ireland. If, at some stage or another, I feel I don't have that ability or that opportunity then I'll walk away from the game and I guess the other thing, which is inter-related, is whether I'm still enjoying it. Yes, we're paid for it, but I still see it as a sport and it's a great sport to play.
"Am I in the mix come the Six Nations? Who knows. But I'm doing as best as I can. As for the next couple of seasons we'll see. I'll make my mind up depending on what happens in the Six Nations, maybe by mid-February or March. Certainly the hunger is still there. I believe Leinster are starting to move in the right direction. It's taken us years to get a forward pack capable of winning Europe and we're undoubtedly getting a mix of backs. The potential is there to do great things in the coming years."
