Lions snub may have gifted us more of BOD

Interesting to catch up with Owen Sheers during the week — Sheers is the poet who was artist in residence with the Welsh Rugby Union for a year, and wrote a book about his experiences sharing protein shakes with the Welsh back row, and kicking the ball back to Leigh Halfpenny after training.

Sheers offered a neat explanation of the backlash against Warren Gatland due to the dropping of Brian O’Driscoll on the Lions tour last summer, an issue which was a) rather overblown at the time, if you remember, and b) something everyone can afford to be magnanimous about, given Saturday’s events in the Aviva.

At any rate, Sheers made the pretty common-sense observation that people may have felt O’Driscoll should have been playing because of narrative reasons — that a last turn-out for the great man against Australia, where he had made his name with dazzling tries for the Lions of 2001, would have been a fitting end to his career in that red jersey.