RUGBY: Gerry Thornley talks to Anthony Horgan about his selection on the Irish team for Saturday's game.
Rarely can Ireland have started a new campaign with so many players who spent all or vast chunks of the previous season on operating tables, physio tables, in pools, ice chambers, gyms and the like. Most places except a rugby pitch.
The gist of Eddie O'Sullivan's opening address in pre-season might readily have been: "welcome back boys - this is a rugby ball ..."
Of this Saturday's 22 on duty against Wales, Shane Horgan, Anthony Horgan, Keith Wood, David Wallace and Tyrone Howe all fell into the aforementioned category, while Reggie Corrigan and Paul O'Connell were forced to miss significant portions of the 2002/03 campaign as well.
None have endured more slings and arrows over the years than Anthony Horgan. The sight of him slowly being escorted from a pitch, often Thomond Park, after another abortive or curtailed comeback attempt to the backdrop of a sympathetic round of applause seems to have happened a mite too often.
Yet in point of fact the 26-year-old has played in 47 of Munster's 53 games in the Heineken Cup and bearing in mind they haven't played a particularly wide game, his strike rate of 10 tries is impressive. Only Anthony Foley (14) and Jason Holland (11) have more.
Horgan added bulk to the slight figure that originally broke into the Munster team. With his low centre of gravity he is almost impossible to stop close to the line and he is a potent strike runner - as evidenced by the set-piece try through the heart of the Stade Francais midfield in Munster's epic quarter-final win in Paris two seasons ago.
Yet thanks in the main to the catalogue of injuries, we were always left wondering if he'd be able to make the step up.
As he did himself, and it had reached the point where he'd almost stopped wondering.
A fairly laid back type, he gives the impression he can laugh off most injuries, even the cruellest blow of all. The day before the Heineken Cup final between Munster and Leicester at the end of the 2001/02 season, Horgan merely brushed past a team-mate during a warm-up on the indoor pitch at the Vale of Glamorgan Hotel, yet missed the final, the subsequent tour of New Zealand and the first half of last season with a broken hand.
Then, after just three games for Munster at the turn of the year, Horgan required another operation for a damaged shoulder. Yet ironically, after his most inactive season to date, came his first cap on the summer tour in Samoa eight weeks ago.
No one saw the irony of it more than him.
"I got back in April but did myself no justice really, wasn't fit. I was the opposite to Woodie - I piled on the pounds. So yeah, I came back unfit, went on the tour unfit and really decided to put my head down and train. I got myself some way fit, got a cap - which I wasn't really expecting - and it's gone well since."
"I got the trip to Poland, which improved my fitness also. The week in Athlone was probably the hardest a lot of us have ever trained. That will stand to us," he says deadpan, but with a trace still of surprise.
This one is sure to be more memorable for him, for Horgan admits he doesn't remember much about that first cap either, the extreme heat and humidity was hardly ideal for your archetypal, red-haired Irishman.
"You get used to the heat, it's just the fact that you couldn't get your breath back on the day. I've never experienced anything like it in my life."
In contrast to team-mates who duly departed to exotic climes, Horgan smiles when admitting: "I was pretty happy coming home to Ireland straight away afterwards."
The rumour goes that Horgan was almost hospitalised that night in Apia, a notion which brings a wry chuckle.
"There was no way I was getting hospitalised if the flight was leaving that night. Nah, it wasn't that bad. If you looked at Dinger (Johnny Bell) he was getting sick after the game, and so was Ronan. I think they probably got the affects of it worse than I did."
Even the relative heatwave which has accompanied the last two weeks at the camp in Athlone and CityWest bear no comparison to what Horgan suffered that day in Apia eight weeks ago.
"There's not a problem getting your breath back. You can run and get your breath back five or 10 seconds later. Whereas over there you'd literally need five or ten minutes to get fully recuperated and going again."
Horgan lost three or four kilograms during the game, but that was a minor concern. "People who didn't suffer as badly as me lost up to six kgs during that game. For me it was probably good losing a few kgs," he jokes. "But it does affect you, and I felt groggy for two or three days afterwards."
He'd long since begun to wonder if that elusive first cap had passed him by, and attributes it in part to others being sidelined.
Similarly, "there's always that thought in your mind: 'are you going to get another one'. I didn't really expect to get a cap after the season I had had. So that was a bonus and I'm obviously thrilled to be here again and get a chance of another one at home".
Much has been made of the competitiveness in the back row, but in the same breath coach O'Sullivan has consistently mentioned the outside backs as well.
On an individual basis, the stakes have never been higher for Horgan. As events would have it, while Hickie, James Topping, Tyrone Howe, John Kelly, Justin Bishop and Gordon D'Arcy are all waiting in the wings, at least he knows he has this chance. One which they might not all get.
