A TAXING SCHEDULE awaits Ireland’s players on this latest tilt at the Rugby World Cup, and that’s without even accounting for the regular rigours of international Test matches.
Schmidt with players after training at Thomond Park last month Source: Dan Sheridan/INPHO
By the time World Cup quarter-final weekend rolls around, Ireland will (fingers-crossed) be on the go a full four months on from the beginning of their preparations under Joe Schmidt in mid-June.
Peter O’Mahony mentioned during his interview with Second Captains yesterday how mentally draining and intense World Cups can be. Now, the blindside isn’t a man you would normally consider quick-to-moan about circumstances and workload – in the same interview he labelled he ruptured ACL in the 2015 pool clash with France as ‘not ideal’ – so it’s worth considering the toll on the mind that goes unseen behind the body blows that happen on the field.
“It’s intense, man,” says Jamie Heaslip, who has been to two World Cups, helping Ireland progress through the pool unbeaten on both occasions before bowing out at you-know-what-stage.
Heaslip on the run against Canada in 2015, with Peter O’Mahony in support. Source: Billy Stickland/INPHO
“They’ve been training since June and – they haven’t been at home since June, they’ve been in camp since June, right,” says the former number 8 as he begins to slow his sentences, dragging out words for emphasis and introducing the ringmaster driving the pressure dials north.
“And you have to do that, because you have to build up the pressure. Even if he’s not doing it, the pressure is naturally building because there’s different cuts at different times or one or two lads might get injured.
“And then you’re playing these fitness games and you don’t want to get shown up by other people. And everyone’s watching, it’s getting recorded. It’s intense, man.
“That’s the real skill of being a good pro, it’s knowing how you react to that environment and knowing how to release the tension.”
Every player, every character has to develop their own approach to installing a release valve on that pressure. For Heaslip, the secret was planning. Marking out his free time, time away from camp and so knowing when to go full throttle through his workdays.
“I used to plan so much, because you’d know you’d have the weekend off. So you spend time with family and friends, you’re getting away, doing stuff just to relax completely. Because when you’re in there (you can’t).
“That’s why it worked well for me as a player. Because when I’m in I’m all in. But away from it, I was very easily switched off. You have to.”
Come World Cup time, switching off gets a little more complicated as the squad is pushed tighter than ever while the easy-out of family time is not always quite as straightforward as it can be when players are working out of a fixed base in Maynooth.