BOD is the man with the big play on the big day
That is where he became a star in 2000 and he will finish his Test career on the same ground next week.
Obviously, tomorrow’s game against Italy will be a chance for the home crowd to pay homage and it’s a marketing dream at the minute but you have to take these things into perspective. He’s Ireland’s most successful captain in the history of the game, he’s broken absolutely every record, he’s a fantastic fella and a wonderful player but it’s a natural progression and I don’t understand why some people are attaching a sadness to the occasion.
This is a happy time, to be celebrating an unbelievable career, not a sad time, and that’s the key point.
He’s had an unbelievable career, he’s been fantastic for Ireland and it’s his time now to bow out. He has no regrets so we should be celebrating his career not mourning its passing.
For me his qualities as a leader are often underestimated amid all the praise for his rugby talents. When Brian was captain, he had added responsibility and he still came up with the big plays in big games. Yet he’d also be the first to acknowledge he was part of a bloody good team over the years and it was great to hear that from him during the week, that he was glad to be part of a winning team.
That’s Brian in a nutshell for you. It’s hard for me to put it into words because my judgement is clouded by the fact that I played with him and consider him a great friend, not just a great player. I suppose he knows the real ROG and I know the real Brian and for me, his role as captain can never be underestimated because it is such a difficult role.
Essentially the players are listening to the same voice but you have to keep re-energising the group, keep trying to include people who are struggling for form and keep trying to bring the best out of people. That’s all far more difficult than you’d think.
It sounds mundane but every Friday he’d have to do his captain’s press conference and it was part of his brief but he did it with a smile on his face and I think he elevated rugby to make it far more acceptable to a wider audience as opposed to an upper class sport.
He’s probably the first name people go to when they talk about rugby in Ireland and that’s what he deserves. The fans in Lansdowne Road tomorrow will remember beating South Africa and Australia when he was captain and we as players looked to him as our leader. That was the start of the Irish rugby team being taken seriously around the world as opposed to being a team that was competitive for just 60 minutes. Now it’s an 80-minute package and he’s got a lot to do with that because he’s changed the belief in other people.
He was so encouraging for us. Everyone looked to Brian as the player but he was a very good motivator behind the scenes in his own discreet way. And he challenged himself an awful lot. He had to look himself in the mirror a lot of times throughout his career in terms of diet and fitness and kept addressing any issue he had to face. As a result of that he has the most impressive rugby CV in Irish rugby.
Of course he made so much of it look easy, including giving up the Ireland captaincy. He probably realised he needed to concentrate on himself to stay on the teamsheet and keep performing — and he did that seamlessly.
And now Ireland have another excellent captain in Paul O’Connell who will lead O’Driscoll and the rest of his team into a game against Italy whose last credible threat went when Sergio Parisse was left out with an injury. Parisse is their talisman, the guy all the Italian players look to and with him gone and half-backs who aren’t strong enough, I think it will be attack from the off for Ireland.
Before, it had been a case of wearing them down and then the scores came in the final 20 minutes but weather conditions permitting it will be an open, fast game and our intensity should hopefully leave Italy chasing shadows.
With Ireland leading the championship on points difference, Joe Schmidt will have done every mathematical scenario from the other games with Ireland’s advantage in mind. I think he will fancy England to beat Wales, where perhaps he will have a surplus of 10 points for the English afterwards. And then he might have a 30-point surplus in mind for England in Rome on the last day. So I think he wants Ireland to do a job on Italy tomorrow to amass such a good points differential that will mean the final game against France is a one-off cup final for the championship.
By resisting the temptation to change personnel this weekend, Schmidt has displayed some really shrewd management skills. He’s picked the same players from Twickenham, except for the injured Peter O’Mahony, and he wants them to respond to that defeat with a big performance. And if they don’t, it’s back to the drawing board in terms of selection for France, where on the wing alone, Tommy Bowe, Simon Zebo or Fergus McFadden could come into the equation.
The position of concern for me though is at 12 where the recurrence of a head injury for Luke Marshall is potentially troublesome because he’s crucial to the plan going forward. The amount of head injuries he’s had makes his current concussion so serious and you have to be very worried for his future, at any level.
For Ireland that’s also a problem because there is not a big pool of players in terms of Test-level inside centres beyond current first-choice Gordon D’Arcy. A lot of players can do a job there in the Rabo but that’s chalk and cheese to what is required for Ireland to succeed in a championship or progress to a semi-final or final of a World Cup. I would say that is an area the Irish coaches are doing a lot of deep research in at the minute because you need two really good players per position. We’ve seen that winning a championship is all about a team’s strength of the players from numbers 24 to 32. You see it at Carton House every Tuesday morning when they have a crack off the senior team in training and they’re giving it their all. It’s a great opportunity for them to impress the coaches and if they go well on a Tuesday it raises the whole standard for the rest of the week. If they don’t, if they’re scratching their arses, dropping ball and being casual it ruins the week. People have no idea how important they are in terms of setting the tone for everyone.
So there’s plenty at stake for Ireland this weekend. The players have a point to prove after Twickenham, every point counts and positions are definitely up for grabs going to France.
Also, those fringe players will be looking to get on the plane this summer for Argentina because with only 10 games left before the World Cup warm-ups opportunities are limited. And I think deep down, too, the players will want to be on the pitch in Paris for Brian’s last game. And to be fair, the photo would be a keeper for a lifetime for all the players who love their snaps. Team masseur Dave Revins would be a good man for that, hogging the spotlight by standing next to Drico. The furthest he’d be in the next two weeks will be five metres!
