Kidney hopes captaining will bring out the old Heaslip

The Ireland coach had few options when he was casting around for a skipper in the autumn. Paul O’Connell is out of the game long-term, Rory Best and Brian O’Driscoll were nursing injuries and then it was a case of who else could lead a Test side? Strangely, after a decade of seeming to produce countless leaders, as Ireland’s provincial and Test consistency has dropped so has their number of strident captains.

So 29-year-old Jamie Heaslip, having skippered Leinster, was the obvious candidate but the famously reserved Kidney must have wondered if he’d made the right call for the Six Nations when first he could not stop the irrepressible No 8 from talking long enough to make the request last month, and then feared some embarrassing bodily contact.

“Yes, I was bit excited,” Heaslip said, laughing at the memory. “Deccy rang me and asked me to come in to Dublin and, after a bit of chit-chat, well, you know how I can ramble on and so he had to ask me to shut up, so he could ask me if I would like to be the captain.

“I had to stop myself from grabbing him and giving him a man-hug and making things a bit difficult between us. But it’s such an honour. My dad gave me his usual line, ‘fair play, you got promoted, but I’m still the Colonel and can pull rank’.”

Leadership might not have been an obvious end-point for the back row forward with a penchant for white boots and streaked hair, but Heaslip was destined to be a colourful character. He was born in Israel, where his father, retired Brigadier General Richard Heaslip, was stationed with the UN. The youngest of four children, he came through Newbridge College and stood out at the Junior World Cup held in Scotland, where the Irish lost to New Zealand in the final in Glasgow.

He was nominated for the Under-21 World Player of the Year and would go on to become a key figure in the Magners League and Heineken Cup success of Leinster and Ireland’s drive to the Grand Slam in 2009, and played for the British and Irish Lions in South Africa that year.

He is the 1000th Ireland rugby internationalist and was also the first Ireland Test player to be shown the red card, for infamously kneeing Richie McCaw, the All Blacks skipper, in a moment of madness in 2010. Of all the players to choose to attack, the target of the world-leading flanker could reveal both Heaslip’s sense of daring and foolishness.

He has struggled, however, to replicate his bullish form in the past year and Kidney is hopeful that the extra responsibility might just push him back to the powerful, leading figure off the back of scrums that he was. It is one of several big calls Kidney has made this season.

Heaslip has Best and O’Driscoll back alongside in this championship, and he insists that O’Driscoll has been particularly helpful. But his challenge stiffened a fortnight ago when Ireland went down to England, and the manner in which they lost, coughing up possession in front of a passionate Lansdowne support, failing to take ball through phases and maintaining pressure with the game tight, evoking surprise and condemnation in Ireland. Questions were asked of O’Gara’s tactical execution late on, but the captain also came in for criticism over how he handled the crucial last quarter. And now his squad arrive in Edinburgh, Jonny Sexton, Gordon D’Arcy, Simon Zebo, Mike McCarthy and Cian Heaslip having joined the list of players out of action pre-tournament, notably Paul O’Connell, Tommy Bowe and Stephen Ferris. He also has to be mindful of two new caps, Paddy Jackson and Luke Marshall, with big roles in defence and attack tomorrow afternoon. So, is pressure building?

“No, I don’t think so at all,” he insisted. “I realise I’m in such a privileged position to be the representative of the players as such, my peers, and I can’t wait.

“I’m relishing it, to be honest. It’s a big game for the team and a massive opportunity for a lot of players. We’ve had a really good week of training, a good mini-camp last week and we’re really focussed on the Scotland game and the threat they pose.

“I don’t look at them [Jackson and Marshall] as new caps, because I considered what they did against Fiji [for Irish Wolfhounds], the impact they had in the whole November series as well. I’ve complete faith in the lads doing their job and doing it well, and playing with that passion and emotion that they’ve shown in training.

“We have a lot of players in good form, and we’ve got young guys with no caps, guys with fewer than ten caps but also guys with over 100 caps, so we have a good eclectic mix of players. It’s exciting, competition has been really good and has driven the training up.”

While Ireland’s success has led most across the Irish Sea to expect their march on the Six Nations trophy to resume, Heaslip adds: “I always say ‘you are what you do every day’ and I’m not looking back or beyond this game.

“This is the only game we’re playing so it’s the only game that counts. I don’t want to talk around anything else really other than the challenge that’s in front of us of Scotland in Murrayfield; the threats they have, the different ball carriers and the width they have.

“We’ve seen their prowess in how they counter-attack as well from turnovers. I think they’ve scored the majority of their tries from turnovers and counter-attacking and we’re quite aware of all the different threats, especially as a pack.

“This is a huge honour for me to lead the team at Murrayfield. You all know the buzz around Edinburgh. This is one of the best competitions to play in and we are going out there to enjoy it.”