Donnacha Ryan: ‘Creating our own history is ultimate challenge’

"The child grows out of you." Until you land in Chicago and see the place bursting with joy for their beloved Cubs. Until you catch sight of the mighty All Blacks leaving Soldier Field just as you enter.

We are playing them, you realise. This is real.

Until you are Donnacha Ryan and you realise this might be the last chance.

Or maybe you are Donnacha Ryan and you are still around long after so many others have moved on. But he’s still here, after O’Connell and O’Callaghan, still commanding that wiry long frame to meet childish ambition.

“I’ve played against them four times before,” he says. He remembers the pace, the other-worldly level of skill, the power he encountered in Auckland, Christchurch and Hamilton on that almost eternal but ultimately nightmarish 2012 tour.

Blindside flank

That was when Ryan admirably covered for the injured Paul O'Connell. Back in the old days the two O'Cs forced him on to the blindside flank, just as Jerome Kaino slides into the secondrow tomorrow as cover for low Kiwi stocks in the leaping department.

Dean Mumm elbowed the great Brodie Retallick a fortnight ago. Concussed. Sam Whitelock was "snipered", according to Steve Hansen.

Ryan doesn’t see the weakness which the Irish faithful are hoping will materialise.

“Ah, backrows are very versatile nowadays and he has played a good few times in the secondrow as well. He’s a guy with 75 caps and calls the lineout as well. [Patrick] Tuipulotu [and Kaino] are Blues boys so they are quite familiar with each other. He’s a big unit.”

Some 125kg. Still only 23, Tuipulotu would be the premier lock in any other land.

"He has about 10 caps already for New Zealand so he knows the systems, I'd imagine, so I wouldn't see much of a difference at this stage."

Ryan is no fool. Those numbers – 75 and 10 are not close, they are bang-on. And he knew them off the top of his head? Or, more likely, he knew he would be asked.

But this unique moment – the All Blacks in the home of the Bears – is why Ryan and so many others play this child’s game.

“It’s unreal. From a personal point of view it is unbelievable. You get into rugby as a young guy to try and play at the top level. You don’t know how far that ambition is going to take you.”

Ryan is 32 with 40 caps since a 2008 debut against the Pumas in Croke Park. Sure, where else would a Tipp hurler make his international debut.

Unique environment

“Well, to be fair, rugby wasn’t really on my radar as a young fella. But just to play for your country, certainly there is a constant level of giddiness when we do get back together as a group. It’s been a disjointed week for us but we have made the most of it,” Ryan says.

“It’s amazing, your ambition is to play for your country and to play the best in the world is the pinnacle of it all.

“The main thing then, obviously the child grows out of you, you turn into a professional state which is to try to be able to perform, to maximise that ambition that you have had.

“Certainly to be over here as well. It is a novelty, a different, unique environment for us all. End of the day: the challenge is to play a game against the All Blacks, and obviously we have not had much success against them. That’s the big challenge we have got.”

Remember Ryan's face when the haka was danced at Thomond Park. Remember the history of Ireland and the All Blacks. 1905, yet never overcome.

“A lot has happened since then,” he smiles. “Two World Wars, lot of other stuff. From our point of view, we have got to narrow our focus on our own jobs. Bringing up history is great but from our point of view, creating our own history is the ultimate challenge.”