ROB KEARNEY FOUND himself nodding along with empathy as Michael Owen spoke about how injuries had changed his game during the final years of his career on BT Sport last weekend.
The former Liverpool striker admitted that hamstring and groin issues had wreaked havoc with his confidence in his body, forcing him to adapt his natural game and leaving nagging doubts in his head even as he played.
“I was petrified of running into a channel,” said Owen. “I just knew I was going to tear a muscle. The worst thing about it is your instinct is to do what you have done all your life but you start thinking: ‘Oh no, don’t.’”
Kearney knows exactly where Owen was coming from, although the Leinster fullback counts himself fortunate to have come out on the other side of that mental turmoil, having had one of the most enjoyable years of his career in 2017/18.
Three seasons ago, though, Kearney strained his hamstring five times over the course of the 2015/16 campaign. Two seasons ago, he underwent three surgeries and suffered some joint injuries too.
It was that period of injury after injury, niggle after niggle, that led to Kearney being able to appreciate exactly how Owen had felt in the final years of his football career.
“It was brilliant and it was unbelievably insightful,” said Kearney of Owen’s revelation. “There was a huge amount in it that I could relate to.
“A striker is probably a little bit the equivalent of the back three [in rugby].
“There’s sometimes you get the ball in space and you have to go full blast for it and, like him, there were times I didn’t want the ball or if I got an intercept, instead of running the length you’d be looking for someone else.”
Kearney said there was no way he could have admitted to his coaches that he was doubting his ability to sprint flat out at that time.
“You can’t come clean because you won’t get picked then. If you say, ‘I’m not overly confident in my body at the moment,’ you’re out the door.
“It happened to me a couple of times last year. You have to just go and, if you pull up, you pull up. It is a difficult place to be in when you’re running and the only thing you’re thinking about is your hamstrings.”
Kearney said that fear, that sense of waiting for the pain, is now completely absent in his game, having helped Leinster to the Champions Cup and Pro14 double last season, as well as being part of an Ireland team that won a Grand Slam, enjoyed a November clean sweep and beat Australia in the June Test series.
“Thankfully, I’ve come out the other end of it,” said the Leinster man. “Even last year, there were times at the start of last season where you wouldn’t be overly comfortable opening up and doing that, so it was a big area for me in my pre-season this year.
“I’ve done a huge amount of speed work and sprinting away from a rugby field on a track, on an astro, just getting used to and comfortable opening up at 100% again.
“The most pleasing thing for me is that we have data for speed times over the last six years and I think it was two, three weeks ago, I hit my best time in six years.
“It’s very pleasing and encouraging to know that at the young age of 32 you still have that in you.”
Kearney has enjoyed a good pre-season with Leinster, although he remains a couple of weeks away from playing due to his later return to training this summer after Ireland’s tour of Australia.
When he does pull on Leinster’s blue shirt again, Kearney will do it with genuine excitement.
“I still absolutely love the game,” he said. “Two years ago, not so much, but now, absolutely.
“The last six months, I’ve been as happy as I’ve ever been in the environment, on the rugby field, really enjoying the last two or three years or my career, whatever it might be.”
And as Leinster and Ireland look to back up last season, Kearney understands that the more experienced players in both squads have an important role to play in underlining to their younger team-mates that doubles and Grand Slams don’t just happen by accident.
“I won a Grand Slam in my second Six Nations, it was my third Heineken Cup season when we won that,” said Kearney.
“I was on a Lions tour at the end of that year, so you’re 22 years of age and you think, ‘This is easy, what’s everyone going on about?’
“Then I do remember having some chats with some of the older lads; I remember one in particular with Brian [O'Driscoll] and he said, ‘Listen, this is not how it flies. These opportunities don’t come around too often, you have to work hard for them.
“It’s up to me and some of the older lads to make sure that the younger boys… not lose the run of themselves because I’d like to think we’re a pretty humble, down-to-earth group, but that they make sure they know these opportunities don’t come around too often. It doesn’t happen every year.”
Management and technology consultancy BearingPoint yesterday signed a five-year deal to become Leinster Rugby’s Official Innovation Partner.
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