Cian Healy keeping it low-key ahead of milestone moment

Cian Healy wants this to be "the same as any other week", but this isn't any other week.

On Friday against Argentina, the 37-year-old will likely play his 133rd game of Test rugby for Ireland, something only Brian O’Driscoll has ever done. All things going to plan, he will be Ireland’s record appearance holder by the end of the month.

The numbers that make up Healy’s career are mind-bending.

Having become Leinster’s all-time appearance holder last month, he’s soon going to hold that record for club and country.

With 281 games for Leinster and 132 for Ireland, he’s played 413 games of top-level rugby across 17 years, winning five Six Nations titles, four Champions Cups, seven URC crowns and a Challenge Cup. His 112 appearances in the Champions Cup are a record, as are the eight finals he’s played in.

If you cut his appearances and medal haul in half, you’d still easily have enough for two genuinely great rugby careers.

As luck would have it, Friday's game against Argentina will fall exactly 15 years to the day since his debut, when he played the full 80 minutes in a 20-20 draw with Australia on 15 November 2009. Along the way, he’s also packed down in Test matches at loosehead, tighthead and hooker, something almost unheard of in modern rugby.

His experience will come in handy this week, off the pitch as much as on it, as he looks to make it as low-key a build-up as possible.

"I would try and separate from this as much as possible. I kind of find any of the personal stuff adds more stress to my week than any of the group stuff," he said, when asked about marking the occasion of his 133rd cap.

"Like, 100th-cap week was probably the worst week of my career for how I felt but there was loads of nice things said and done. Whereas