The best job I ever had started with me picking shards of broken glass out of my hand less than an hour into it. I was a lounge boy in a hotel and it was June 18th, 1994. The reason I can name the date is that it was the night Ireland beat Italy in Giants Stadium. The reason I got a bloody hand is that I was just learning how to hold a tray of empties when Ray Houghton lobbed Gianluca Pagliuca and the place went bananas.
But despite an opening night that left me looking like a Tarantino extra, I loved it instantly. It became a weekend job, a summer job, an every-spare-minute job for the next three years until I moved away to go to college. We were a gang of smartarse bar staff, constantly piss-taking and shit-talking, reveling in each other’s company while firing out pints to beat the band.
The place was full of characters but nobody was more loved than an old guy called Benny. It was never totally clear what his role was about the place – it felt impolite to even ask. But he had been a fixture in the hotel for decades and was very dear to everyone. And any time one of us gave him a bit of cheek, he always drawled the same reply. He’d lean on his sweeping brush and go, “I was here before ya. I’ll be here after ya.”
Benny came to mind this week when the sports media was suddenly brimming with pieces about Cian Healy and the Leinster caps record. By lining out against Dragons in the Aviva, Healy passes Devin Toner at the top of the list, making it 281 games in a Leinster jersey. Get that man a sweeping brush to lean on.
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Healy has been on the go with Leinster since May 2007. The team they played in Donnybrook that night, Border Reivers, folded almost immediately. Leinster moved to play their home games at the RDS the following season. Everything about Leinster Rugby now is different to what it was then. Except for Cian Healy.
[ Sporadic brilliance does it for Leinster in 31-0 win over Border ReiversOpens in new window ]
Healy has togged out for the province alongside players born as far back as 1970 (Reggie Corrigan) and as recently as 2003 (Gus McCarthy). In fact, in that first game 17 years ago, Healy actually came off the bench for Corrigan who was himself the then leading caps holder for the province with 136 games played. Healy has doubled it – and more – and the rocket is still rising.
This is Healy’s 19th season of professional rugby and he’s still in there pitching – the only Ireland game he didn’t play in this year was against Italy during the Six Nations. He is two games away from equalling Brian O’Driscoll’s record of 133 Irish caps. He turns 37 next week – only Rory Best, John Hayes and Johnny Sexton have played for Ireland past their 37th birthday.
Whatever way you want to look at Healy’s career, it’s a monumental feat. Of endurance, obviously. But of excellence too. It’s one thing being able to hang around long after the players you came up with have moved along and got tangled up in real life. It’s another to still be completely relevant.
Healy keeps trucking. It’s not as if he’s being kept around for the vibes. He does the bread-and-butter work of backing up Andrew Porter for Leinster and Ireland. He has the flexibility to play a half as hooker in the Six Nations, as he did against Scotland last year. There are no soft minutes in his CV. Nobody is padding it out for him. He is needed and he delivers.
There’s something just so reassuring about the sight of him trundling onto the pitch, beardy and brawny, the look coming out from under that monobrow that says: “This is going to hurt. Maybe me, maybe you. Let’s find out.” He gets through his work like one of those robot lawnmowers, always on, happily bumping into whatever obstacles he finds in front of him before righting himself and going again.
Through it all, Healy has been quietly, steadily himself. Away from rugby, the broad sweep of the nation probably doesn’t know a whole pile about him. They know he’s into his music, they know about the portrait painting, they know him for having a big old car. Beyond all that, he’s a dad and a husband and a prop with a gap between his two front teeth.
And people love him for it. Remember the run-up to last year’s World Cup, when Healy’s injury against Samoa ruled him out of the tournament as the squad was on the brink of being announced? There was a true air of devastation around the Ireland squad for him. You could see it in Andy Farrell and Johnny Sexton on the day the squad was announced – they’ve both seen everything there is to see in pro sport and they were genuinely upset at Healy’s loss.
[ Leo Cullen hails ‘phenomenal’ Cian Healy ahead of record Leinster cap number 281Opens in new window ]
But as with everything else, he’s kept on keeping on. Nobody has played more Champions Cup matches for any club. Now nobody has played more Leinster matches in any competition. Soon enough, nobody will have played more Ireland matches.
On the night of his debut, John O’Sullivan wrote on these pages that, “the hugely promising Cian Healy made a definitive impact”. He did it then. He kept doing it for years. He’s doing it still.
Here before ya, here after ya. Unbreakable.
