The first months of 2013 were the weirdest months of the professional era for Irish rugby. Declan Kidney was looking for a new contract. Paul O'Connell's back was at him. He was out and some wondered if he'd ever play again. Brian O'Driscoll was possibly retiring. Ronan O'Gara was possibly retiring. Amid the chaos, Kidney needed a captain for the Six Nations. O'Driscoll seemed to some to be the natural choice. But Kidney seemed intent on hitching his re-election campaign on youth, so he decided to buck conventional wisdom. He made Jamie Heaslip captain.
The 2013 Six Nations did not go well for Ireland. It started well, that is true. Wales were blitzed in the first half of the first game in Cardiff. But once the adrenaline burned off after those first 35 minutes, Ireland hung on for dear life, as they would for the whole tournament. Ireland lost to England in Dublin on the day that Brian O'Driscoll's firstborn entered the world, in a game where Heaslip was awful. Ireland lost to a terrible Scotland team in a game made memorable by O'Gara's desperate crosskick. Ireland drew with France at home in a rainy slugfest that nearly killed O'Driscoll. Ireland lost to Italy for the first time ever. And throughout the time, our leader was Jamie Heaslip, who struck a disconsolate, overwhelmed figure in postmatch interviews throughout that winter.
Many in the Irish rugby pundit class wondered whether Heaslip was 'captain material'. Here is Donal Lenihan writing days after the England loss.
For me the haunted face of Jamie Heaslip said everything you needed to know about the team. I can understand how, in the infancy of his captaincy, he would have taken that defeat so personally and, given the amount of unforced errors and penalties he conceded in the game, he had every right to feel the pressure. I think Heaslip is only coming to terms with the responsibilities that accompany the captain’s armband. While the core responsibilities and the decision-making process on the field is now shared between key personnel, the captain is still the face of the team.
If Heaslip seemed insecure in his own capacity for the role, the commenting class seemed equally uneasy with the idea of him as captain. Maybe this is because he did not come from traditional rugby stock. Maybe this is because he openly professed to not liking or watching rugby in his down time. The optics of the Heaslip captaincy in its infancy were all wrong. Many remember the shot of Heaslip attending the pregame cointoss against England with his Beats By Dre headphones around his neck. Many were put off by it.
When i saw Jamie Heaslip wearing his giant headphones during sunday's coin toss, I thought it disrespectful. I grow old, I grow old...
— Shane Hegarty (@shanehegarty) February 12, 2013
Kidney left after that Six Nations. Joe Schmidt came in and made Paul O'Connell captain. O'Connell shook off that back injury and enjoyed a season and a half of glorious rugby, captaining Ireland to consecutive Six Nations championships in a spell where we beat every world power bar New Zealand. The Heaslip captaincy was mostly forgotten about. But when O'Connell and Sexton went off Sunday and we all despaired about how the team would cope without them, Heaslip stepped seamlessly into the captain's role. There was no malfunctioning in the Irish system. If anything, the team was more focused, more alert, more in sync.
When people celebrated the Irish rugby team of the noughties, they always celebrated the leaders who ran the team on the field. But those leaders have all left the stage now. That great era of Irish rugby officially ended on Sunday.
What happened in between the loss in Rome in 2013 and Sunday - those 18 months or so - are pretty interesting for Jamie Heaslip. He opened a restaurant, got involved in Dublin's start-up scene, became Leinster captain. He seems like a larger person. He is not the linebreaking monster of 2009 but he is a rock. When he gave the postmatch interview Sunday, he seemed overwhelmed at first but then instantly composed, assured, together.
O'Connell is gone. O'Driscoll is gone. Argentina lurk, maybe a semifinal after that. As much as rugby is a squad game, this is also Jamie Heaslip's team now. And that does not trouble me in the slightest.
