{"id":416611,"date":"2026-04-25T08:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T08:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/416611\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T08:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T08:34:09","slug":"how-coaching-with-clontarf-fills-the-void-of-retirement-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/416611\/","title":{"rendered":"How coaching with Clontarf fills the void of retirement \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

He\u2019s not long into his new career, but Cian Healy<\/a> is already sure what style of coach he wants to be. Detail is king. Emotion, motivation and energy, that\u2019s for other people. The softly-spoken former prop is not one for roaring down the changing-room door.<\/p>\n

Now working in the club game, areas of influence include the scrum \u2013 for obvious reasons. Contact skills and breakdown work also fall under his remit. Listen to him talk about what props feel when frontrows slam into each other, body height while carrying, breakdown speed \u2013 the works. It\u2019s clear why he seems himself as a technician.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be much of a shout at people, motivate people guy,\u201d says Healy. \u201cI try to give them as clear a message on detail as possible. I was never a big fan of shouters, roarers.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople that are incredibly good at motivating people and getting their blood going, that\u2019s their bag. Sticking to what I know and what I believe I\u2019m strong at is where the players get the best benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

A professional career flirting with the 20-year mark came to an end just shy of 12 months ago. Now, Healy coaches at his old haunts, Clontarf and Belvedere College. There is a narrative that Irish club rugby is approaching being as strong as it ever has. Ex-pros lending their expertise only adds to that idea.<\/p>\n

Healy started coaching at Clontarf one day a week in the last year of his playing career. Post-retirement, he\u2019s been in Castle Avenue more regularly, acting as an assistant as the club looks to defend their AIL crown this Sunday. They\u2019re delighted to have him, but it sounds like the decision to come on board was for his benefit as much as anyone else\u2019s. <\/p>\n

\"CianCian Healy (middle row, second from the right), has been coaching with Clontarf since retiring from Leinster and Ireland. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be involved, to make sure I didn\u2019t have a dead stop from rugby,\u201d says Healy. \u201cThat would create a massive void. It was part wanting to be involved and part looking after me not having a big hole in my life. Rugby was my whole life before that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some ways, moving to coaching was a natural transition for an older prop already used to helping younger pretenders to his playing throne. In others, there have been challenges. Moving down a level, from province to club, has not been one of them. \u201cPlayers thrive on hearing the same language as is used in professional rugby,\u201d says Healy.<\/p>\n

\u201cTreat players as professionals. Guys at club level pour their heart and soul into it. They don\u2019t want to be treated like they don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d done a lot of one-on-one stuff with the other props and frontrowers in Leinster and Ireland. In terms of language, I find that type of coaching one of my stronger points. You\u2019d know for sure you have the attention. You\u2019re figuring out language that lands with that particular player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clontarf\u2019s pack features plenty of provincial experience, particularly in the frontrow. Young Leinster loosehead Alex Usanov is injured. He likely wouldn\u2019t play in Sunday\u2019s final even if fit, given the province\u2019s lack of available props. Ivan Soroka and Dylan Donnelan have also spent time with Leinster, while Charlie Ward was once with Connacht.<\/p>\n

The wider group up front has been on the stronger side this season. \u201cI put a lot of focus on the breakdown area and the speed that players can deal with, what they have to look for,\u201d Healy says. \u201cYou\u2019re going through a lot of small, slow drills that let players see opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019ve been good at that this year, seeing opportunities and where there aren\u2019t any. When to leave a breakdown and when not to challenge it, when you think there\u2019s a chance to turn the ball over.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt scrum time, it\u2019s just been a case of trying to challenge the lads with different movements. The challenge is getting reward for dominance and making sure your team is scrummaging in a positive manner. We\u2019ve come across a couple that didn\u2019t necessarily want to go for it, they look to the ground or look for a turn. That goes all the way up to the professional game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a lucky position that we\u2019ve quite a dominant scrum, so my message to them is to stay on the train track and keep going forward. The main outcome of that is to get ball to play with. If a penalty comes along, it comes along, but we\u2019re looking for the cleanest ball we can get. In that dominance, you can send a bit of a message across to the opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Healy has been known to jump in to a scrum on the odd occasion in training \u2013 mainly when propping numbers are low \u2013 but he\u2019s keen to limit physical involvement. Unsurprisingly, protecting the body has been a priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gave it enough damage over my career! There\u2019s been a lot of training, a lot of rehab, make sure I\u2019m losing the weight I don\u2019t need, building a strong enough frame that I can chase my lads around for the next 20 years or so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the week that\u2019s in it, finals weekend giving the club weekend significant publicity, there is an easy story to tell about ex-professionals giving back to their club community. Talking to Healy, it almost seems more straightforward than that. He grew up in Clontarf. Sure why wouldn\u2019t he head back?<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly days, Clontarf was huge for my career. I got the opportunity to move around, play different positions. It came with a level of freedom but also the opportunity to train against bigger lads, older lads in my final year of school and first year out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey let me play centre to develop my skills and see what I was seeing in front of me for a season. Things like that were huge for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a good few years where I lost contact with it and my main focus was my professional job, I didn\u2019t go to the games. It was later in the career where the interest sparked again with Clontarf, the desire to see them do well and eventually to get involved and help them go on further.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He\u2019s not long into his new career, but Cian Healy is already sure what style of coach he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[34860,122370,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-416611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ail","tag-cian-healy","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}