O’Driscoll: no changes for Slam build-up
“The team will be treated the same, the opposition will be treated the same, training will be treated the same, the preparation is the same,” he declared.
“There’s no point in changing anything just because there’s a big carrot at the end of it. You go with what you’re comfortable with and what has worked. We won’t be thinking in depth about the maybes and the possibilities.”
Pressed to explain how he and his players could push all the hype and expectation to the back of their minds and prepare as normally as possible for this game, O’Driscoll accepted that: “individually some people’s minds might wander a little bit when they’re sitting in their rooms or going to sleep. That’s human nature and of course it’s going to happen. However, the things we do as a squad from an analysis point of view and all the professionalism you put into a week before a Test match, none of that changes and that’s the way we’ll be approaching this game.
“Sure, there’s a big carrot at the end, it’s there and it’s like the elephant in the room. But why treat it differently? What’s the reasoning for changing something in the final week? You wouldn’t be doing justice to the previous weeks if you changed something now. That’s why we’re going with the same tack and the same principles and the same ideas and the same strategies that we have for the previous four games. We’ve treated each game as an entity in itself and it’s the same this week. We’re not conscious of talking ourselves up or down.”
O’Driscoll has captained the Lions, skippered Ireland to three Triple Crowns and achieved everything the game of rugby has to offer – except to lead his country to a Grand Slam.
So is this the most important match of his honour-laden career?
He thought about it for a moment before answering with a coy smile: “The next one is always the biggest one.”
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