“Are you ever going to take the cap off?” Cian Healy is asked. The cap with the record number of 134 Irish appearances is sitting on his head rather than being worn. Recognition awards are not made to be fashion items, and this green and gold piece seems precariously balanced on top of the loose head prop.
“It’s the rules, yeah” he mumbles. The laws of the locker room. “You can’t take the hat off.”
They played Hozier’s song Take Me To Church over the stadium system when Healy came on to the pitch in the second half in a sweet tribute to his nickname “Church”, his late replacing of Andrew Porter on 66 minutes for a scrum probably the most fitting way to mark the taking of centre Brian O’Driscoll’s previous record mark of 133 caps.
“Was it? Jesus. Nice, nice,” he says. “I got a vibe from the roar all right; it perked me up a little bit. I guessed during the week what my thoughts would be whether it’s a lineout or scrum and I was right, so in for a scrum and hunker down on what I had to do there. But it was a nice moment. I enjoyed it.”
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In world terms the 37-year-old passes O’Driscoll’s number and draws level with New Zealand’s Beauden Barrett, who has also won 134 caps. O’Driscoll could rightly quibble that his eight Lions caps give him a 141 number. But nobody is getting picky today, least of all Healy, a good friend of O’Driscoll, who is also from Clontarf.
“Eh, dunno yet, really,” he says when asked how he felt stepping on to the Aviva turf. “It felt good, a good feeling. I haven’t unpacked the feeling and emotion of it all just yet. I’m kind of staying as present as possible and enjoying the moment.
“Yeah, yeah of course [I will unpack it]. I don’t know when. I’d like to sit down and just watch the game at some point over the next few days. It’s what I do with most games and how I start my review. But it would be nice to sit down with the family and watch it at home.”
Healy’s humility is expressed as a steely reluctance to overblow the achievement or allow it inflate and suck the air out of Ireland’s win over Australia. The word “I” can be an alien word in a team environment and so Healy keeps it at a wary distance. The cap, very likely to keep falling off, is his reminder of that fundamental principle of having pride and staying grounded for the rest of the night.
He met O’Driscoll during the week so they have had their chat about records tests and rugby. As he sees it the numbers just came to him, adding up as he played through his so far 15-year international season. He never chased them. The record was never part of the drive to push him through the career-threatening injuries he endured. It was not the motivation to keep going.
“I’m not driven by the number of caps,” he says. “It is not something that pushes me on like winning and success with the group. Trophies and that drive me on. Please God now I can keep playing and not get injured or anything like that and Simon [Easterby] might consider me for the Six Nations.
“A couple of times I thought I was beaten, yeah, and recovery would have gone a little bit better than I expected. So, yeah, it’s still the hand you’re dealt and I continue to do that, you know? If I pick up something in the next couple of weeks, it will be business as usual, get it fixed and move on.
“I hurt myself a lot on BMXs and skates and stuff when I was younger and I always came back from that. So I don’t know, it’s kind of been something I’ve continuously just done. It’s a means to get back to do what you want to do and be where you want to be. So it’s kind of an easy thing to dig into.”
He greatly enjoyed his two children Beau and Russell coming out on the pitch before the match. A cuteness overload, he was pleased that one or both of them didn’t bolt for the stands.
Former Irish outhalf and fellow Belvederian Ollie Campbell was also there to present Healy with a tie. On his phone he has stacks of messages of congratulations from people in rugby and other walks of life, “all sorts of people” whose names you sense he feels would be improper to divulge. Were you a captain like Campbell, he is asked at the end.
“No, Jesus...I stay away from captaincy,” says the record breaker, always keeping it real.
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