O’Driscoll’s incredible work ethic is what made his legend

David Campese has uttered the odd verbal gaffe in his time, but the Wallaby legend was prescient enough to foresee the direction rugby was already taking when he announced his formal retirement from the game back in 1999 after one of the most wondrous of careers.

“I’m going to leave it to the new generation,” he proclaimed, “to the crash-it-up robots that dominate the game.” Fifteen years on, and his description of rugby is so uncannily accurate, that it recalls Biff Tannen, the town bully in Back to the Future who gets his hands on Marty McFly’s Grays Sports Almanac, and uses it to get filthy rich by betting on sporting results for years to come.

What he couldn’t know is that Joe Schmidt would be uttering similar sentiments, though in a far less dramatic fashion, 15 years later when Brian O’Driscoll prepared to depart from the stage. O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy are, according to the Ireland coach, the last of a dying breed of centres who seek to utilise guile rather than grunt to breach opposing defences.