Had an injury not cruelly wrecked his 2023 World Cup dreams, he’d likely have already passed the great centre’s total of 133 caps, but the 36-year-old isn’t driven by the number of caps matches but rather the accumulation of medals.
He has plenty of those too, but there is pride to be taken from his longevity; particularly after he overcame serious, career-threatening injuries along the way.
Still, there are things he wants to achieve.
“That’s not in my hands,” he said of O’Driscoll’s record.
“What’s in my hands is to put a couple of performances together, when Leo and the lads give me the opportunity, to try and get back into that squad,” he said.
“I’d love to win another Six Nations, that is something I’d want to be a part of, share those experiences with more people, I’d love to be part of the November Sseries that looks to be against some serious teams.
“There is an itch I want to scratch there and it’s not so much about going past ‘Drico’, it’s about winning and achieving things with groups of people.
“That’s something that seriously drives me.
“It’s not so much about going past Drico, it’s about winning and achieving things with groups of people.”
Recently, English internationals Chris Ashton and Danny Care compared stories about their final seasons; offering the opinion that once you give voice to your intention to retire, your body starts to shut down.
Healy thinks 2025 will be the end, but hasn’t experienced that sense yet.
“This probably will be the last one,” he said of this season. The body is good. It has its aches but it’s always had its aches.
“If you mentally give in to those aches and start taking Mondays off training, and doing that, that’s not what I’m about, so I don’t think it has that effect on me.
“I enjoy the challenge of getting around sore knees and a stiff back, and getting through a training session and playing my part.
“I like that. It’s like a small personal win that nobody else needs to know about. That’s what gets you through hard days of training when you’re stiff and sore and you’ve had a big scrum session the day before. They’re the micro bits of the game that I enjoy.”
Toner’s appearance in Leinster’s dressing room on Friday night moved Healy close to tears.
“It massively caught me off guard, because he called over to the house on Thursday, during the captain’s run, and dropped off a gift and a card,” he said.
“I was on to him and chatting to him but he kept his cool and didn’t mention a thing.
“He was in the changing room with his son and spoke some unbelievable words and was very close to having me in tears. A special moment, it was real nice and I hope it’s something I can do in the future for someone else.”
It was a quieter moment – when he surpassed the incredible total of 400 professional games – that gave him most satisfaction.
“I did when I landed on 400,” he said.
“I personally thought that was a cool number of games to hit and that to me was like, ‘Wow, I didn’t think I’d get this many games playing for this club and my country’.
“I took a bit of stock and enjoyed that but it was in the middle of one of the tournaments, so it was fairly ‘crack on!’.
“I genuinely try not to think about it that much.
“I’ve a cabinet in my house with caps and medals, I don’t have jerseys on my wall, so they’re the things I see, they’ll spark memories to me of certain years and certain teams.
“I enjoy that, I enjoy thinking of . . . ‘oh yeah, I was locking it down with Bernard Jackman or Jerry Flannery or whoever’. They’re the sort of memories I enjoy.
“I’ll eventually tell my kids I played with whoever and they’ll say, ‘no way, he’s a fossil’. It’s good craic. I like that.”
Healy’s 2007 Leinster debut is from a different era, playing against Border Reivers who were disbanded at the end of that season.
“We play a game on the bus on away days and it’s name the starting team from people’s first cap. There are good laughs when my one comes up. Owen Finegan (1999 World Cup-winning Wallaby) on the bench. Gregor Townsend was on the bench for them,” Healy said.
“I was aware when I was starting out my rugby journey that it was still quite a young professional sport. I had these visions that by year 2018, we would be getting paid like footballers. That’s the only difference. That didn’t happen.”
