Interview Shane Horgan: Gerry Thornley talks to the Ireland winger who, after so many setbacks, is savouring the World Cup

Shane Horgan bounds out of bed these mornings. By 7 a. m. he and fellow Irish winger Denis Hickie are breakfasting on the Terrigal beach cafe. Once in a while Keith Wood has beaten them to the menu, but not often. Roll on another new day. Horgan's rugby life has never been better.

Essentially a modest lad who'd prefer a low-key profile, Horgan had declined any requests for interviews in the build-up to his comeback game against Romania last Sunday. He didn't want to draw more of the spotlight on himself. He preferred his rugby to finally do his talking. He just wanted to play a game.

Even this week he was a little reluctant, but with a remarkable, try-scoring return - much lauded by coach Eddie O'Sullivan - he can breath a bit easier.

He picks a table next to the windows in the high-ceilinged conservatory dining-room in the squad's Crowne Plaza Hotel overlooking the tree-lined beach, and orders a tall black coffee as the sun streams through.

Life is good alright, and Horgan can't really contain it.

"I'm as happy as I've been in a long time, I have to say," he beams. "I am, without a doubt, enjoying myself here as much as I have on any trip, at any level for as long as I've been playing rugby. I don't know if it's because we're in the World Cup in such beautiful surroundings and everything's been looked after so well. I think it's that, amalgamated with the fact that I hadn't played in nine months."

He's always enjoyed training, but these days he's even enjoying being in the gym, and he's loving the training ground. If the sun has been hiding behind clouds some days, he's probably been the last to notice.

"The feeling in the camp is fantastic. Everybody is enjoying themselves. It's easy to get up. I'm up early every morning. Having coffee and toast down in the surfer's club. There's a nice atmosphere down there.

"Myself and Denis go down every morning and we know everybody. There's always a good atmosphere. Watch the sun rise."

Who'd begrudge him his boyish high spirits? For no one has had a tougher, longer or lonelier road to Oz. Nine months of hurt, you could say, since the fateful day he suffered a torn groin 25 minutes into the win over Scotland on February 16th. Having fought his way back into the Irish squad in time for the first warm-up game of the season in mid-August against Wales, he tore his groin again. As happens sometimes, injury can change a player and the toughest time of his career has changed him.

"Shaggy" is one of the more apt monickers on the Irish rugby scene. Left-of-centre politically, Horgan is by no means your average, school-playing rugby type. From Meath, schooled at

St Mary's in Drogheda, Horgan came through the junior club ranks with Boyne.

Good-humoured, bright and well-read, he is good company. Hair usually tousled, sometimes unshaven, often lolling around in sandals, he has a slightly bohemian, unkempt and distinctly laidback air about him.

Yet, ironically, the rigidity of his regime during his lengthy recuperation from injury enforced a much more disciplined lifestyle which he now revels in and strives to keep going. He doesn't seem to be as shaggy as he used to be.

During the initial six-month road back from the grade-one torn quadricep he sustained at Murrayfield, he had taken what he describes as a comparatively softly-softly approach.

Missing the cut for the summer tour meant time wasn't of the essence. The second tear was cutting it a bit fine though.

"I thought I was 100 per cent going into the game against Wales. The injury was grand. I had done quite a bit of work.

"I felt sharp but then on Thursday, the leg went again. And that was the first time I thought 'wait a second, I could miss a World Cup here'."

It was on the back pitch at his club, Lansdowne. The backs were going through their final match moves before the game.

"It wasn't even a full session. We'd done a warm-up. But I felt it go straight away. 'It's not even a twinge. I've done some damage here'."

His hunch was right, even if it was "only" a grade two tear, for by this stage he'd become quite a medical expert on torn quadriceps. "Anything you want to know about the rectus femoris, I'm your man," he jokes.

Actually, though you'd have thought he would have been suicidal, the way Horgan recounts it, he wasn't allowed to.

The team doctor, Gary O'Driscoll - son of former Irish full back Barry, nephew of ex-Irish back-rower, John, and a cousin to the current occupant of the number 13 jersey - came straight over to him.

"He is such a great guy. He is a top man. He has a good manner, he's a charming guy and he brings the right sort of influence. It's good fun, but he's very serious about his work and he's delighted to be here.

"He and Deccy (Declan Kidney) came over to me and said: 'Listen, just think about the best-case scenario. Don't think about missing the World Cup. Just think about the good things from that moment on.'

"I went straight for an MRI and Gary went with me. I hadn't really known him until then and we had a great chat about everything. The MRI came back and it was mediocre. It wasn't great. A grade two tear. Not as bad as the first and not the same place."

Horgan, consultant Steve Eustace, and the staff in Cappagh Hospital knew each other on first-name terms, which helped, and Horgan didn't get down on himself.

"We spoke. You just gotta be 100 per cent positive about this. There's no point in being negative. But I then also made a decision with my family that I had to do everything to get this right. I didn't want to leave any stone unturned and I don't want to have any regrets."

Horgan had three weeks before the World Cup squad was announced. He moved out of his house in Dublin back to his folks' house in Meath, commuting to the Total Fitness club in Malahide where he was doing his rehabilitation with Mark McCabe. He saw Horgan twice a day for weights-based sessions and pool work. It was about a 25- minute car journey, as opposed to between half an hour and 90 minutes from his house in town.

His days ran like clockwork.

"I was getting up early and eating completely clean. My parents (Ursula and John) did everything they could. My mum was unbelievable. They made life easy for me. When you're training that hard, you need to be able to take a rest. Sleep is such an important factor in recovery and I didn't have to waste time cooking and preparing meals."

The power of positive thinking. From family, friends and management alike, Horgan had a huge network of support around him always offering words of encouragement - 'See you at the World Cup.' 'Best of luck in Australia.' 'Can't wait to see you out there.'

"I never got depressed. I became very focused on my goal. Of course, at the back of my mind I was thinking: 'Am I going to make it?' But, my primary concern was, 'I gotta make it, I gotta make it. And I've got to do everything right.' I lived day to day, doing everything right. That way, time would elapse, and I'd get through it."

The biggest boost of all was being named in the squad on September 10th, and Horgan's rate of recovery, the faith shown in him, and his performance last week were all a credit to the way he was managed throughout this critical period by O'Sullivan and the Irish management.

"It showed they had a trust in me. They had taken a chance in me, and that's in my mind as well. That I don't want to let them down either," he say, conveying a real sense of debt.

It wasn't just the statement of faith in Horgan. O'Sullivan didn't push him into playing a game for Leinster prior to departure for Australia, preferring a fifth week of uninterrupted "rehab", and backed Horgan to hit the ground running against Romania. In the process, O'Sullivan has been fully vindicated by his selection.

There had been a great buzz within the camp after the chosen 30 came together for a week's camp prior to departure in Citywest, training each day in Terenure. Horgan felt it more than anyone, and thenagain when actually doing match practice in the week of the Romanian game. Along came Saturday, match day.

"It was like somebody had poured a bucket over me, and just drenched me. That was the sort of feeling I had. It wasn't panic. It was more concern and worry. Things were creeping into my head. 'What if I drop the ball?' 'What if I make a lot of mistakes and don't get picked again?' But what helped was Deccy having a word with me the night before. He said: 'You're going to make mistakes. You haven't played 20 games this year. So, accept the mistakes, and don't let them ruin your game'."

It was sound advice. A high ball hung over him in the first five minutes in what seemed like a hurricane. One second it was there, then it was gone. Look, don't waste everything you've done by having a panic attack. And, as the game went on, he felt more comfortable.

Horgan ghosting in from his wing on to David Humphreys's inside pass off an early lineout for a typical weaving gallop up the middle seemed like a masterstroke.

"We'd watched a lot of their matches on video and reckoned that this was a place we could hit them. There was no move called. It was really good play by David. He felt the (Romanian) openside really racing on to him, and it was something I was looking for.

"In fairness to David, I thought he executed it brilliantly. It got me into the game, and that's important for a winger. It's especially important for a winger," adds Horgan laughing, "who hasn't played in nine months."

A breakthrough try in the 26th minute isn't a bad follow-up for a winger either, Horgan's support play finishing off good work by Girvan Dempsey and Kevin Maggs.

"I'd love to tell you I had flashbacks from being in Malahide or being in ice baths, or something like that. But it was just relief, straight away. I had got on the end of it, and I made a step. I probably wasn't as sharp as I would have liked. Just getting it down. Yes. Try. And it wasn't a whole lot more than that.

"I'm the sort of person who, when he scores a try, I'm happy, and it's a big deal for me. It really is. Playing against Romania, I don't care who it's against. You're playing in a World Cup. I was truly delighted. It was the first try. That meant that we as a team had got some 'go ahead'. That was important."

It was a helluva comeback game, all things considered, in defence and attack save for a little lapse late on in leaving space on his outside for Romania's second try.

It was the display of a player who could become one of Ireland's stars of the tournament.

It could be argued O'Sullivan showed a little favouritism toward Horgan, or at any rate gave him more latitude than other recuperating players such as David Wallace. But, in actual fact he didn't. O'Sullivan simply recognised Horgan is the best Irish right-winger around at the moment and Ireland needed him from the off at this World Cup. End of story.

Long gone are the days of the skinny, pacey little winger. A good decade ago, Inga Tuigamala was something of a prototype for the modern-day winger, which Jonah Lomu took to extraordinary levels. But nowadays, all big teams have big wingers. Joe Rokocoko for the All Blacks, England's Ben Cohen, Aurelien Rougerie of France.

Increasingly, big wingers are also required for reverse kick-offs, or restarts to the blind side, as well as cross-kicks - both offensively and defensively. At 6ft 4ins, Horgan is cut from that cloth and, as he showed, can stand up to Lomu in his pomp.

"The game has changed. Wingers have to do so much more than catch a ball and run in (a try). I'm never going to be the best in the world at doing that, but I have to think what else I can bring that's going to make Eddie want to select me, and me do well for an Irish team.

"I try to get involved as much as I can, and bring some of the stuff I have as a centre."

He may be a centre by trade with Leinster, but by now he slots effortlessly into wing mode for Ireland. His strike-rate ain't bad either. Of his 20 caps, 16 have been on the wing, in which he has scored nine tries.

He hated missing out on the Six Nations, and the tilt at a grand slam, as well as missing the summer tour to New Zealand. He's still only played one game this season, he reminds himself. He was still conscious of easing off in the days after the Romanian game. He still takes ice baths twice a day.

"This is my goal. The World Cup. And what's the point in knocking off, when I've got through so many trials and tribulations to get here?

"This only comes around once every four years. To have missed out on this would have been a nightmare."