There were times when Keith Earls presumed he wouldn’t make it this far. And he doesn’t just mean all those years of doubt and pain, all that time he spent under-selling himself, all those imposter syndrome weeds that wrapped themselves around him and held him down. No, he means recent times. Like, 3½ months ago recent.
Coming home from Durban at the end of April, he knew the tear in his groin was bad. A season-ender, definitely. Enough to wipe out the World Cup, almost certainly. And sure after that, there might not be a whole lot of road left altogether anyway.
“It was a high grade three on the scan,” Earls says now. “It was like a 3C tear. And to be honest with you I’d given up coming home on the plane. I knew it was a bad one and I got the scan and we got the results, and I was like, ‘that’s it, I’m not going to be able to get enough games under my belt for Andy [Farrell] to pick me to get into the squad. I was just like, ‘I’m going to fizzle out here.’”
That he didn’t is one of the sweeter stories of the build-up to this World Cup. It began with the realisation among the Munster medical staff that the injury wasn’t as bad as they feared. It continued with him managing to play a part in the storyboard end of Munster’s season, coming on in the final of the URC and lifting the cup alongside Peter O’Mahony. It bubbles on yet, as he prepares to lead Ireland out on Saturday, becoming just the Irish ninth player to win 100 caps.
“I’m trying not to think about it,” he says. “But talking to Andy about if it does happen, he’s telling me, ‘it’s not just another cap, you can’t have a normal week because it’s not a normal week.’ Talking to Cian Healy and Johnny [Sexton], I know Cian Healy tried to drown it out and not speak about it and it caught up with him before the game, all the emotion.”
And so he speaks away. About the people who made him, about the person he was for far too long, the one who fretted over everything and couldn’t let himself enjoy the only life he ever wanted. About how he tries now to consciously take it all in, to wring all the last good drops out of what’s left of his career.
“It’s there in the back of your head,” he says. “You’re not constantly thinking about it. It’s more, ‘enjoy it, it could be the last one.’ I’ve been prepping the same the last couple of years but probably as you get that bit older, you appreciate it that bit more. You’re probably lying to yourself when you’re young and you say, ‘this could be the last game’ because you know there’s plenty more to come.
“But my injury profile [for] the last 18 months hasn’t been great. I got the sense that it was all over when I tore my groin in Durban a few months ago. I know what it feels like to be that low and thinking, ‘that’s it’. That was the feeling I had — I thought that was it. I thought it could be the last time. But thankfully, I clawed my way back.
[ Keith Earls in line to win 200th Munster cap against SharksOpens in new window ]
[ Evergreen Keith Earls more than a try scorer for IrelandOpens in new window ]
“I’m enjoying it because I’m not sure how many more there’ll be. So I’ll regret not enjoying them if I don’t. I spent long enough when I was younger beating myself up and putting loads of pressure on myself. So I’m genuinely trying to get out there and enjoy it. Because who knows?”
There might not be a more loved Ireland rugby player than Earls. People admire Johnny Sexton and James Ryan, they get beguiled by what Garry Ringrose and James Lowe and Hugo Keenan can pull off. They dream of a life being told what to do by Peter O’Mahony. But Earls has that rare mix of brilliance and vulnerability that makes people want to root for him.
He will be 36 in October. His latest IRFU contract is up in November. We press him ever so gently on what he thinks might happen after that and we get a tight, slightly nervy smile in response. After an awkward little pause, he says, simply: “I don’t know.”
Whatever it turns out to be, he has the immediate future with which to contend. The World Cup squad Kremlinologists will read his landmark 100th cap coming against England in the Aviva a thousand different ways. Is it a way of softening the blow should he turn out not to quite make the cut for France? Or is it more like Farrell giving him his due after a long and storied career and World Cup selection doesn’t come into it at all?
Maybe a cigar is just a cigar. Earls is under no illusions though — it will be a monumental day for him, for his family, for everyone who helped him along the way.
“It’s weird, you can get quite nostalgic and emotional on matchday and you try and think back to all them people who have helped you. And you think about your wife and your kids at home. I’m always texting Edel, real emotional on the day of a game and she’s like, ‘will you g’way, it’s just matchday’. But you’re just trying to quieten your mind and make yourself feel better about it.”
Nobody deserves it more.
