BOD times it perfectly
France-Ireland on Saturday was all about O’Driscoll, and in particular it was all a matter of how it would end, and whether the schedulers would have been better off arranging the tryfest against Italy as O’Driscoll’s farewell to arms.
Bear with us. There’s a legal requirement to write about Brian O’Driscoll this weekend, or maybe a technological imperative: I doubt there’s a sportswriter on the island whose scribbling implement would function properly without producing something — anything — about the Dublin native.
I was interested in his opponents last Saturday because Irish sports icons traditionally have a couple of opponent types. Barry McGuigan has a Eusebio Pedroza looming large in his sporting story, but he also has a Steve Cruz on the other side of the balance sheet.
The Irish soccer team have Silvio Lung and Daniel Timofte in their narrative, yet there’s also a Toto Schillaci lurking in there, waiting for a ball to spill his way.
Sonia O’Sullivan has both variations also: Gabriel Szabo the nemesis, Fernanda Ribeiro the vanquished competitor. We could go on.
Brian O’Driscoll has a lopsided balance sheet in that regard.
There’s a long list of players who trailed considerable reputations right up to the time they confronted him in a game, while there’s a far lower number of adversaries who gave him serious problems. Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu, for instance, troubled O’Driscoll on the Lions tour of 2005, but not in a way that anyone would care to dwell on.
Still, there was a touch of nervousness about last Saturday’s game that went beyond the usual cliche-storm about Paris in the springtime.
O’Driscoll has had problems containing Mathieu Bastareaud in the past; four years ago the vast Frenchman kept O’Driscoll at arm’s length in Paris as he set up a try for Les Bleus, though in fairness it’s difficult to think of anything smaller than Quint’s boat in Jaws that might stop the huge Frenchman.
With that in mind you were a bit apprehensive about O’Driscoll on Saturday in the French capital. During the game there were — if you want to be honest — a couple of cases of the hem fraying, but he survived, and the game came to its fairytale conclusion.
O’Driscoll’s timing has always been exact, and last weekend proved it. The balance sheet stayed loaded in his favour.
In the last few weeks, with the National Leagues restarting, you start meeting GAA players again for a coffee and a chat, and you notice the small things.
Take the upswing in GAA players buying Tupperware containers, for instance. But we’ll come to that.
Diet is obviously a big issue, and one that takes on extra significance every year; hence the reluctance to use sugar in those teas or coffees, for instance, if they even have one of those caffeine-based drinks. One player said recently that having managed to get off sugar the last thing he wanted was to re-introduce it to his diet and face trying to wean himself off it all over again: the headaches, in particular, were what he wanted to avoid.
The importance of diet goes far beyond avoiding dessert when you meet well-upholstered hacks, of course.
Many teams ensure dietary uniformity by introducing a simple mechanism: targets which the players have to reach, which means awakening the competitive instinct.
It also means that players have to cook for themselves. A lot. The accepted wisdom now is that three or four smallish meals over the course of the day are the best option for maximising the return from a strenuous training regime. As a consequence, a lot of inter-county players find themselves slaving over a hot oven on a Sunday evening, trying to come up with the meals that will last them through the week; it also means that those players tend to pack a few containers when they head to training, as part of the healthy post-session meal can be used the following day.
“They’re the standards you need to reach for intercounty,” said one player to me recently.
“There aren’t any excuses for not being fit, or in shape: that’s the baseline, but the cooking is something you get used to. Even if you can’t, you have to learn, and after a while everyone’s in it together.
Everyone has their little bunch of Tupperware containers with their healthy grub.”
Hence the explosion in sales, therefore, of all those little plastic boxes.
My reference elsewhere in this piece to Jaws is no accident. During the week, it came to my attention that a great white shark is approaching Ireland, swimming inexorably across the Atlantic, the great tail flicking from side to side, its black eyes scanning the depths...
Sorry. Back on track now.
I am from the generation of children who were terrified in the mid-70s by the movie mentioned above. You often see sniffy references to the damage that Jaws, a huge summer blockbuster, did to independent movie-making and cheap films which addressed adult themes.
What about the damage done to thousands of kids who couldn’t face swimming in the sea ever again?
I mention this here because of the growth in open swimming and so on, and the notion that you could be splashing along off the coast in Barleycove or somewhere and then you see a vast black fin knifing through the water towards you...
I know the latest information suggested the shark had decided to try Greenland (obviously it was aware of what happens around here every March 17) but if one of them gets within a mere 1000km of our shoreline, can another shark be far behind? I also mention it because in another lifetime — what, 20 years ago? — your columnist was living in Cape Cod, and at a party someone suggested we all go for a dip, ho ho ho, what larks, and it was only when we were bobbing about a hundred yards off the beach that someone mentioned, you know, that Jaws had been set on a fictitious island based on Martha’s Vineyard, just a few miles over...
You know when the participants come out of the water in the triathlon and hop on the bikes for the next part of the race? They wouldn’t have seen me for dust that evening.
Hail glorious St Patrick, thank you for the feast that bears your name. Nobody asked me, but I thought I’d pass on my best wishes to the drunkard taking a leak in public I passed on the street last March 17 at, what, noon? Much obliged, mate, you really added to the festivities. For you and the thousands of ludramans like you despoiling the country today: top o’ the morning!
