7 days ago
James Lowe not in mood to let Cian Healy leave Leinster without more success
Motivation will be no problem for Leinster as May unfolds.
Denied yet again in the Champions Cup, this time at the semi-final stage, the province must now square its shoulders to the secondary target that is a URC title.
It's four seasons now since Leo Cullen's side won its last piece of silverware. That was when the league was trading under the banner of the PRO14 for the last time. It's way past time for the trophy cabinet to welcome a new addition.
And there's other factors at play here too.
'When I look around the changing-room and the people who aren't going to be here next year, the two you obviously think of are Ross Byrne and Cian Healy,' said James Lowe ahead of Saturday's quarter-final against Scarlets.
'Some of the best days of your life are when you win silverware together. For Ireland we have been able to do that recently but we haven't been able to transfer that with Leinster. It doesn't mean that because you have won with Ireland you are going to win with Leinster.
'You still have to come back here and perform on the biggest of days and under the most amount of pressure. That's what we want to do. We can't let Cian Healy leave Leinster without another silver medal around his neck again.
'It's not doing him justice, it's not doing Ross Byrne justice.'
For Healy, retirement awaits. For Byrne it's a new life in and with Gloucester.
Leinster legend Cian Healy. Pic: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho
For Lowe and eleven other Leinster players, there is so much more business to attend to before their summer holidays having been named in the British and Irish Lions touring squad.
Lowe was one of the first players up for media duties two weekends ago. When a swarm of them donned red for the first time at a get-together in London he was asked about the arcane views of Willie John McBride when it came to the foreign-born contingent.
Lowe is one of three players in Andy Farrell's squad born in New Zealand, there are two Aussies and two more from South Africa. Some qualified for their respective Six Nations countries through residency, others through lineage.
McBride didn't see any such subtleties either way. To the former Ireland and Lions captain the presence of seven southern hemisphere-born players in a named squad of 28 simply 'bothered' him.
Lowe's response to it was both measured and impactful. Everybody's journey is different, he said, adding that his just didn't happen to start in Ireland. The hope is that this proves to be an isolated thorn and not just the first in a bed of them come Australia.
'I don't think you can question anyone's want or desire to represent Ireland or Scotland or England or Wales,' he added this week. Not being born here, I don't think anyone's going to question any of us.
'I don't think you are going to question Bundee's want and desire every time he gets the opportunity, [or] Jamo, Mack to any extent. We are very, very fortunate that we fell into that category. We've taken it with both arms and I think we've left our mark on the Irish jersey.'
The same, he said, applies for Scotland's foreign-born Lions legion.
A trip of a lifetime awaits all 38 of the tourists. Lowe got a glimpse of just how big the whole Lions pack really is in London when told there was something in the region of 90 staff employed to cater for the squad and all ancillary operations.
He was introducing himself to the same people three times in the one day, such was the blizzard of faces and voices and the schedule involved. The best part, though?
Having a beer with men who will morph from enemies into friends in the coming weeks.
'Like, you genuinely have a serious hate for these people and then you meet them in a context of 'we are on the same journey together, about to tour Australia', and you need to break down these barriers because we're all in the same boat, going in the same direction and we want to succeed.
'So it was cool in that sense and, like I said, some people who when they are on a rugby pitch you kinda hate and then I'm sitting down having a beer with them and 'jeez, you're kind of like me...' Then I remember they hate me as well but I think we're kinda normal.
So, yeah, it was cool. It was nice.'
