One cool kid

During the last Lions tour to South Africa, Jamie Heaslip was in Irish college. A few years on, and plenty of fun later, he is travelling himself.

Jamie Heaslip started out like any other eight-year-old, one amongst a field of Lilliputians in Naas rugby club. On a Monday evening last month, he returned to his roots with the Six Nations and Triple Crown trophies.

After visiting his alma mater, Newbridge College, that morning, he warned everyone that he’d only be able to parade the trophies for an hour before returning them to Dublin, so this would be just for the kids before he’d make a longer visit in the summer post-Lions.

“The queue was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe how many kids came out. I dunno, we have to keep them interested somehow, and the club game, it’s a numbers game and it’s the clubs who are taking in the new kids to the game.”

Heaslip may not be one of rugby’s keenest fans or historians, or even that enthusiastic on video analysis, but he appreciates the journey he’s undertaken since. A fairly chilled-out young man, at the same time he’s a typical, modern-day player and you can be sure his desire to wear the famous red strip in South Africa burned a good deal longer than he has let on.

The Lions tour to Oz in ’01 brings back memories of Saturday mornings in Naas rugby club and big fry-ups, though the first Lions’ tour which made an impression on him was the 1997 venture to South Africa. By then 13, he was in Irish college that summer at Coláiste na Rinne in Waterford, with two friends, Ollie Keenan and James Moran, and the latter’s grandfather would record the games for them to watch on Sunday mornings in Dunmore East.

“I remember the second test, mainly, and seeing them win it and thinking ‘this is unbelievable’,” says Heaslip. “Scott Gibbs bouncing one of their props, John Bentley’s wonder try. And later on that year I saw that behind the scenes video, Living with the Lions. Those are my earliest Lions’ memories.”

Somewhat more in keeping with his image, the tour of ’05 passed him by slightly, even though he turned professional that summer, if only because he was doing his finals and then went to Las Vegas on holidays.

It completes a rollercoaster of a season for Heaslip, what with a starring role in Ireland’s first Grand Slam for 61 years, his Lions’ selection and Leinster’s march to the Heineken Cup final. Maybe one day he’ll even have a chance to absorb it all. But “it’s been big game after big game. Enjoy it and then park it.”

The Saturday after winning the Grand Slam, Heaslip, Luke Fitzgerald, Rob Kearney and Stephen Keogh went down to Naas, stayed in a hotel, and visited the Heaslip home on Sunday for breakfast. “The lads were walking around and Stephen Keogh was taking pictures of me making my Holy Communion and stuff, when he sees a picture on the wall. My dad’s brother, Damien, who’s actually Barry Murphy’s godfather, got this photograph for my dad’s birthday and it was one of my dad playing for Shannon along with Brian O’Brien. Stephen Keogh recognised all the dads in the photograph.”

Heaslip was born in Tiberias in Israel, where his father Richard was stationed at the time with the UN. His mother, Christine, and elder siblings Graham, Richard and Joanne, were all based there for a year and a half when Heaslip was born, and they returned to Ireland before his first birthday.

His father, who retired as a lieutenant colonel, also ‘toured’ Croatia and Cyprus as a Brigader General, and young Heaslip went to school briefly there too. “It was great for an eight-year-old; I went to school in shorts and a t-shirt. I went to school for about a month and a half or two months, and then I had three months of basically going to the pool every day, where my brother was life guard.”

Not alone did his father play for Shannon, but Graham played for Galwegians and Connacht, and Richard for Trinity and Oxford. Growing up across from the Curragh racecourse, where he used to run around with his mates in the summer months, Heaslip first went up to Naas when he was eight, and he still has North Midlands League under-10, 11 and 12s medals at home.

“The North Midlands League was the be-all and end-all for us. Barnhall were always very good and we usually ended up in finals against them, and I remember going on our little tours to St David’s in Wales. A lot of those lads are still amongst my best mates, and I can’t say enough about Naas and their mini set-up.”

Heaslip wouldn’t be the first to reach the top of their sports who had older siblings to act as early standard-bearers. By some distance the youngest - he is 11 years younger than Graham - he claims to have been bossed around a fair bit and to his regret he only played against either of his brothers once, in a Trinity-Wanderers early-season friendly.

“They won and I was gutted,” he says, only half-jokingly. “It was the first and only time I was more worried about some-one else than my own game. I remember he intercepted a ball and almost scored. I was running after him shouting: ‘don’t let that ****er score!’ I’d never have been able to live it down.”

The first inkling that he might be half-decent at rugby came with a call up to a Leinster Schools under-18 trial when he was 16. Disappointed not to be called up for the final trial, he still noticed that his Terenure counterpart went on to play for the Leinster and Irish schools.

Two seasons later Heaslip would have played more than once for the Irish schools but for the foot-and-mouth outbreak. In any event, he was in ‘the system’ and, was a talismanic figure in Ireland’s unlikely run to the Under-21 World Cup final in 2004.

Shortlisted for the under-21 Player of the Year alongside the likes of Jerome Kaino and Luke McAlister, he was content to be in the academy and play another year with Trinity while completing his degree in Mechanical Engineering. He’s now studying for a Masters and has no regrets about effectively delaying his entry into the professional ranks by a year, continuing both his education in rugby, under the tutelage of Tony Smeeth and Hugh Maguire, and in life.

“I tell you what, I feel sorry for those guys coming through now in our Academy. They’re in the gym at seven in the morning, and part of college is going out on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday nights. Some of these guys are missing out on a lot, I feel anyway.”

The following campaign was his breakthrough year at Leinster under Declan Kidney, and in the last four seasons he’s played over 90 games for his province. He’s been blessed to have a surfeit of ex-number eights as his coaches since, Michael Cheika and Mike Brewer at Leinster, Gert Smal with Ireland and this season another former backrower in Johno Gibbes.

“It’s a good thing and a bad thing, because Cheks has something (critical) for me on a weekly basis … and Brewser was really good for me. He was unbelievable in terms of learning how to play the game, what lines to run. Maybe a hangover from Newbridge and Trinity was trying to do too much, and Jonno has kept on where Brewser left off. I have been spoilt with regards to coaches, and then in the Academy both Phil Lawlor and Colin McEntee were number eights as well.”

The burning ambition since turning professional in ’05 was to make the ’07 World Cup. Having become the 1000th Irishman to play for Ireland against the Pacific Islands in November ’06, in the last test played at the old Lansdowne Road, he was afforded the first test against Argentina in June the following year and the final trial against the Scots before the squad was announced the next day.

Rooming with Gavin Duffy in Killiney, he went down to breakfast, and thought he might have made the cut when Eddie O’Sullivan said nothing to him then, but on returning to his room there came the dreaded knock on the door at about 11am.

“He gave me his reasons, I won’t say much about the reasons he gave me, but I was down in Naas drinking pints within the hour. I didn’t even go and see any of the lads. Packed my bags and got in the car.

He was back with Leinster on the Tuesday, and used the “chip on my shoulder” to up his form, his season going from strength to strength as he nailed down that number eight jersey for Ireland.

Almost every interview with him refers to his self-confidence. “It’s better to be confident than not confident, isn’t it?” he reasons with an engaging smile. Is it true? “I’m confident in my abilities, and those around me, but I don’t think I’m cocky about it. If you’re cocky then I don’t think you respect other players and their abilities. But you have to have a bit of confidence in your ability o take opportunities when you arise.”

He brings up that wave before his try against Scotland and the white boots, not the done things perhaps in some eyes in this very PC world we live in. “Like I’ve said many times ‘it’s your problem with the white boots, not mine’ and if you’re giving out about me waving before I score a try, at least I score tries. People get a bit uptight about stuff.”

He wasn’t too chilled out when escaping to a different room in Riverview from the rest of the squad with Fitzgerald for the Lions’ squad announcement. “I wasn’t nervous at all because I hadn’t thought about it, up until that bloody press conference and when they started talking about it, and showing the 1997 tour. Once I heard my name I don’t think I heard any other names after that. But I don’t think I really grasped how big it was until a few days later. It’s the biggest accolade bar starting a test for the Lions.”

He says he’s not sure what to expect, but “10 minutes later I was in the gym when Shane Horgan came up to me and said: ‘anything you can do, do it. Just embrace the whole thing and you’ll love it.’ And I thought: ‘Brilliant!’”

He is not going out there “just to be a number”, though is mindful that the back-row permutations are so endless he’ll have to hit the ground running. Some rollercoaster though.

“This season has the potential to just blow the hinges off the door.”