Ready for work
saying ‘Get to about 120kg and you’ll be strong and heavy enough to shift anything.’
“I suppose at the World Cup, I was 125 then I dropped to 120 and I just didn’t like it up and around that so this year I dropped it right down.
“I was 114 coming back in after the summer. I’m kinda hovering around 115 now and pretty happy with it.
“I just got rid of the s**t weight. There is no belly weight or anything like that. I’m probably the leanest I have been since, Jesus, I don’t know, 2008 or so. I’m feeling good. I don’t feel like I have any excess weight.
“We used to say at the start that we wanted me heavy because it was the easiest way to get the scrum going forward and stuff.
“I did that and messed around with it. They were on board with everything so when I said to the lads at the end of last year, ‘I’m going to shift a bit of weight here’. I rented a cross-trainer for the house for the summer, stuff like that.”
McGrath has been given the weekend off after missing training last week and he will be sitting uncomfortably if his rival has a big game against the Springboks tomorrow.
The ding-dong battle between the two world-class looseheads will continue for some time yet but given that Healy is in the best shape he has been in for quite a while, the gap has narrowed once again.
And while Healy has his sights set on reclaiming his starting spot with both Leinster and Ireland, he is aiming even higher.
“I’ve had a target of getting back to being a top prop, but it’s not a target of being back where I was,” he added.
“It’s being the top. I don’t have a roof set on that.
“It’s not to be a better prop than Jack or Killer (Kilcoyne), it’s to break everything I have before and try to reach new heights.”
A most welcome return to form if ever there was one.
Ireland team to face South Africa in Dublin on Saturday: R Kearney (Leinster); A Conway (Munster), R Henshaw (Leinster), B Aki (Connacht), J Stockdale (Ulster); J Sexton (Leinster), C Murray (Munster); C Healy (Leinster), R Best (Ulster, capt), T Furlong (Leinster); I Henderson (Ulster), D Toner (Leinster); P O’Mahony (Munster), S O’Brien (Leinster), CJ Stander (Munster). Replacements: R Herring (Ulster), D Kilcoyne, John Ryan (both Munster), James Ryan, R Ruddock (both Leinster), K Marmion (Connacht), J Carbery (Leinster), D Sweetnam (Munster).