Jack Madden: Ireland winger Keith Earls never let bipolar condition define him

Dependable. A word all too overused in sport. Perhaps too in life. The knack of the right place at the right time, every time.

Keith Earls was that in abundance. How it hurts to use the past tense. An abundance of skill, bucketloads of pace, agility, unselfishness.

But above all, it was that needle in a haystack combination of intelligence and bravery. Never say die. That was Keith Earls. That is Keith Earls.

The end was fitting too. Sport gave us a reminder of its ability to crumple dreams like the remnants of a smoked cigarette.

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For the Stade de France provided Earls with one of his finest moments. Ireland are staring down the barrel of an opening day Six Nations' defeat to Les Bleus. Phase after phase, going nowhere fast.

Then Sexton puts boot to ball. In an ever darkening Parisian sky, all 5’10 of you know who climbs highest. A gain of 30 or 40 yards. A seemingly small moment is decisive when Sexton splits the posts.

The O’Gara reincarnation is complete when the Grand Slam soon follows. 2023 and then comes another. But this Irish team wanted more.

On Saturday, 13-0 down, it was time for another miracle in Paris. It almost came too. When that penalty slipped wide of the left-hand post, there was to be no repeat of the drop-goal heroics. No cross-field kick. No Earls. 

Instead, he sat in the stand and watched the end of his international career tick away with perhaps the most stinging defeat of all. That feeling of being powerless is something no elite level sports person is ever primed to deal with. Not after all you’ve sacrificed.

The history books will tell you that Ireland’s second highest try scorer in history played in four World Cups and lost four quarter-finals. They won’t tell you how this one hurt. They won’t tell you how this one was supposed to be different.

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Sitting with ITV’s Gabriel Clarke a little over a month ago, Earls said that he’d never felt better heading into a World Cup. Now, just one cap and one month later, it’s over. Curtains.

Lionel Messi was one of the lucky ones. The fairytale ending owes everything to its rarity, but don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

Ten years on from a Bipolar diagnosis, perhaps the Limerick man is ironically better placed to deal with the latest low that will feel like a death to the Irish rugby family. 

“No” was the answer when he was asked if he felt like he would go down as an Irish great:

“It’s just a part of my life. It’s not who I am.”

The greats are expected to revere that status without ever showing any semblance of arrogance. Earls certainly has never had any issues with the latter. And the former, maybe it isn’t all that easy to deal with when you are blessed with such humility and graciousness.

After all, it wasn’t written in the stars for Earls like it happens to be for so many others. For a young man who was struggling with emotion, the professional game put him through the wringer.

It was a whirlwind.

An international against Canada saw him register a try within two minutes of his debut. Next up was the Lions’ tour at 21 years of age, essentially declaring him as one of the best wingers in Europe in a career that was in its infancy.

Then comes the press, the pressure, the expectation that you thought had peaked, but it hounds you down all the more ferociously like a grizzly bear that can never be filled. 

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It occupies the mind like a parasite. Every action is dictated by anxiety. Then come the mistakes, and the all-consuming quicksand gets thicker.

That 2009 tour of South Africa was described as “hell” by the Munster man in a chat on the Blindboy Podcast:

“One game derailed me for five or six years. I didn’t know how to manage my emotions, and I hated rugby.”

In those early days, Earls was the definition of a bolter, riding the crest of a wave. But even a tsunami crashes. If you don’t pick yourself up, you get swallowed.

To an extent, Earls was submerged. The troubles continued as far as the 2015 World Cup. Even in victory against France, it was obsessional to the point of delusion. It wasn’t a hobby, a privilege, an honour.

And so, the diagnosis was a strange relief. The pieces came together. Instead of standing out like a dislocated thumb, Earls could put it back in place himself:

“I spent every minute of every day trying to figure out how to deal with it.”

Honesty with his teammates. Visualisation. Deliberate breathing. All of it and more, just so when that pass landed in his hands it was going to lead to something. 

More often than not, with Keith Earls, it did.

64 times with Munster, to be exact. 36 with Ireland. And the last of those against England with a tumble any 36-year-old would be proud of, topped off with a walk around the Aviva Stadium with his three girls and his wife.

In his retirement statement, it is those people that are last but certainly not least:

“Finally, to my wife Edel, children Ella-May, Laurie and Emie - thank you for your unconditional love and support over the years. I couldn't have made this journey without you.”

Often, mentions of family are but a token thing. Elite sports people can be so desperate to appease the common people and enhance their own image for personal gain in what is such a short career.

But Keith Earls has never been that type of man. Earls’ journey was more than a rugby one.  It was never going to be the Irish equivalent of ‘The Last Dance’, and a tale of all-conquering success and unwavering confidence.

It was so much more than that. Life is so much more than that. Seeing his Ireland teammates in that iconic number eight seven years on from the passing of Anthony ‘Axel’ Foley was all the reminder he would have needed.

How proud Axel must have been looking down on his old friend lifting the URC trophy on what turned out to be his final appearance in the red of Munster. 

In a life and career of highs and lows, for Earls they would have been amplified by a condition he has never let define him, even as it hindered him to the point of wanting to quit the game he loved. 

There were times where he even told himself it wasn’t meant to be, and still he went to war. Every single time. In red and in green. Keith Earls, the man always stood tall on a pitch of giants.

The renditions of ‘Stand up and fight’ in Thomond Park will never be the same. Thanks for the memories Keith.

“Until you hear that bell, that final bell, stand up and fight like hell.”

Keith Earls facts

He retires as Ireland’s second-highest try scorer with 36, behind only Brian O’Driscoll.

He was part of the 2009 British & Irish Lions squad for the Tour of South Africa.