The WhatsApp message might have arrived without warning on Thursday, but the names in the message dropped with the clunk of a postman noisily pushing packages of an online buying spree through the letter box.
Three Irish rugby monoliths, Peter O’Mahony, Conor Murray and Cian Healy announced that their international careers will close after Ireland’s last game in the Six Nations against Italy and that Healy and O’Mahony will retire from professional rugby at the end of the season. This was, perhaps counter-intuitively, not all that surprising although seismic in impact.
Calling an end to their years in a green shirt, the 371 caps, experiences, success and failures, things that have defined them for most of their lives, is not an easy thing of which to let go.
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But the decision’s solemnity that three of the pillars of Irish rugby would retire simultaneously was also a grand idea that brought an air of order and respect. Its collegiality was touching; three warhorses going out together, arms interlocked and taking the great leap as one. What better image of honouring the idea of team.
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More egotistical players could not have done it like that, as a package of retirements with the accolades and attention dissipating out among the three. But that has always been part of their attitude of doing what is best for all. Still, it will not make the landing any softer, young men ending a journey when they still have something to give.
Retirement from elite sport is rarely straightforward and as team management issues go, Thursday’s group declaration was efficiency at work and was designed to pre-empt questions on retirement as the team closes in on another possible championship win. That requires no distractions next week, with a full focus on beating France at the Aviva Stadium.
Each will take their transition differently, and they say that success in that is like any Test match – it depends on how much each of them has prepared for it. There is an irony too in the timing. Against Wales, O’Mahony impressively added to Ireland’s tackling statistics by making 19 with none missed, as well as carrying seven times and winning three lineouts.
They are not the numbers of a man bowing out of Test rugby. But part of the end is also about a beginning for other players. Ireland needs a loosehead prop to support Andrew Porter for the next World Cup. For the same reason they need to bring on backrow players and add another scrumhalf to get up to speed to compete with Jamison Gibson-Park and Craig Casey.
In a tribute on Thursday, Leinster coach Leo Cullen pointed to his own career and the time he shared as a player with Healy. The prop began his 16-year Irish career in 2009 with Cullen retiring from international rugby in 2011. Similarly, Murray played for 14 years at Test level and O’Mahony for 13 years, his career beginning in 2012 against Italy, having captained the Irish team at under-18 and under-20 levels.
Longevity blessed all of them and they will depart with an astonishing combined service of 43 years of international rugby and a body of work no other three Irish players will likely match.
In O’Mahony’s case, he was the modern player with the old-school attitude that made for a character chiselled from stone. His demeanour was always business with a blazing intensity and with an aversion to talking about himself.
Healy’s was a venerable, stoic voice of few words and a talent for simplicity. And while O’Mahony tended to flame up as he did against Wales, Murray settled into a supporting role to Gibson-Park, ageing beautifully, still lithe and effective.
“I’m just trying to make use of the minutes I get. Ports [Andrew Porter] is a physical freak and he’s being used as much as possible. And I get that,” said Healy last year as he explained how rugby and his mindset had changed over 15 years with the post-match scene now one of children being carried across the pitch by their fathers compared to when he started. Then it was “very much the workplace”.
They have more than 100 caps each, won five Six Nations titles and two Grand Slams. They are too wise for World Cup regrets, too hard-bitten by reality and the knowledge that their careers were gilded and perhaps more importantly respected. If Ireland had a Mount Rushmore, O’Mahony, Healy and Murray would make strong candidates for their faces to be sculpted into the rock face.
The last of the active players to have more than 100 caps, they are carved into the Irish history books.
However, it was not history but the team concept that burned brightly in them all. And Thursday’s choreographed retirements were an example of what’s best for the squad. That DNA has passed on and although in the latter years they each accepted the diminishing roles they played on match day, it seemed to sharpen their senses and deepen their gratitude for what they had been given by rugby.
The word privilege was never far from their lips. That’s what fired their hunger to be part of an Ireland team for so long, the magical sense of being part of something far bigger than themselves.
