Cian Healy's plans for life after rugby: 'I'll do a bit of crafting... exotic woods and mammoth tooth'

PETER O’MAHONY ISN’T the only one with a shed waiting for those moments in retirement when he needs peace and quiet.

Cian Healy has his own set-up at home and while it might not be as familiar to the public as O’Mahony’s, it is a special place for the Ireland and Leinster loosehead prop.

37-year-old Healy will retire from Ireland duty after this Six Nations and then finish his playing days altogether at the end of Leinster’s season.

One thing he’s looking forward to is more time in his workshop.

“I’ll do a bit of crafting, making things, using my hands, using my mind, change it up a little bit,” says Healy.

“Currently, it’s a bit of a bombsite. All sorts of steel, exotic woods and mammoth tooth. There’s all sorts of stuff that I’ve been using to make the blades and the handles and knives and see what I can do and see how I can change what normal is.”

Mammoth tooth?

“Yeah, you can get it online. It’s stabilised fossil. It’s very nice.”

Healy seems genuinely excited to have more time at home in his workshop, while he and his family are planning a decent holiday this summer when he closes the door on the rugby playing chapter of his life.

He is looking forward to being without a rigid schedule. Healy reckons he’s been following one since the age of 14 when he started playing Junior Cup rugby in Belvedere College. 

“I don’t know what it’s like to not be on a schedule,” he says, adding that he definitely won’t miss all the meetings that are involved in professional rugby. He’s more of a “doer than a listener,” so he never enjoyed that aspect of the job.

But Healy loves rugby. He has been praised by every front row forward in Leinster and Ireland squads for his influence on them. Only last weekend, Ireland debutant loosehead Jack Boyle mentioned how in-game chats with Healy prepared him to come on against Wales and make a big impact, including a crucial scrum penalty win.

Healy with fans at Ireland's open training session on Thursday. Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO

Healy has already been doing a bit of coaching with his beloved Clontarf and reckons he could continue down that path.

“I have thought about it, yeah,” says Healy.

“I wouldn’t write it off. I don’t know how much of an itch I’ll have after a while. I’ve been doing a bit with Clontarf this year around the scrum and maul. I enjoy that. I enjoy that it’s not a whole lot of time there. I’ll see what it’s like. Maybe I will.”

He might even play for the All-Ireland League club.

“I could tog out in the Bull Ring next season, yeah. I dunno, Clontarf might need someone.

“I dunno what sort of way my body is going to be. I’m going to stay training, I have to stay training. I’m missing too many ligaments and tendons not to stay training. So I’ll be in good shape, it’s just whether I decide to feel good instead of banging my body up again.”

Whether it’s playing or coaching, Healy is sure that remaining involved in rugby through his club will be important. 

He doesn’t have huge worries about suddenly having a major hole in his life when he becomes an ex-professional rugby player, but he knows he could feel a lack of social connection if he’s not careful.

“It’s about trying to find something that gives that level of enjoyment that sport has given,” says Healy.

“I like the workshop stuff, doing things with my hands, making things, creating things, that gives me a huge sense of satisfaction and enjoyment. That’s a hole I could fill no problem, that’s something I’d hold on equal to rugby in terms of how I feel come the end of a day at that.

“So I think that should cover that off, so your only problem then is you are spending a lot of time on your own? I would want to marry that up and that’s where something like working with Clontarf or something that brings me into a broader group and still keeps a bit of team environment going.

“So I have thought about those things and about how if I disappear into the workshop I could end up a bit of a recluse but it’s important to find a balance of what makes me happy and what I know I need.”

Healy in action during this Six Nations. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO

Though he has played for Ireland another 135 times since, it’s not difficult to recall Healy’s debut against Australia at Croke Park in 2009.

He had already marked himself out as a rampaging, wrecking ball of a loosehead prop for Leinster and it was the start of a record-breaking career with Ireland.

Healy has come a long way since those early days. It took until a scrape with injury-enforced retirement in 2015 to really make him professional.

“I was a headbanger, I was wild, I loved it,” says Healy. “Start rugby, start getting paid, start going into town, having good craic, you’re still training well, you’re still playing well, you don’t see a fault with it.

“I couldn’t tell when exactly I toned down. Could be somewhere in line with post the neck thing. I ended up just under 130 kilos, not shocking weight, but I had to go on a weight-loss journey and that probably tidied me up a little bit and got my act together and then, I dunno, just the natural progression of settling down and figuring out there is a bit more to it.”

The younger version of Healy enjoyed being around team-mates who worked hard and played hard just like him. He mentions Luke Fitzgerald, Fergus McFadden, and Jamie Heaslip, who remains his close friend.

“We go out a lot less now,” says Healy. “We go on play dates, that’s the height of that one!”

Times have changed and Healy is nearing the end as a pro rugby player.

But there’s one final story left to write. Before playing his part in Leinster chasing a trophy, he wants to help Ireland to the Grand Slam.

“Just because I’ve decided to retire doesn’t mean I’m starting to think back about things and think about the past,” says Healy. 

“I’m here to do a job and ideally that job is two more wins and lift a trophy.”