Ireland ready to step it up again
It was, by any standards, an astonishing run for the Leinster man. Grand Slam winners for the first time since 1948, unbeaten through the whole calendar year, and, to top it off, O’Driscoll’s Leinster were finally crowned Heineken Cup champions.
Ireland’s captain is relaxed about the prospect of repeating those successes.
Indeed, he deflects attention away from Ireland’s status as defending Six Nations champions by claiming they have already given the trophy back and have it all to do again.
And as O’Driscoll makes abundantly clear, being Grand Slam champions has not lessened the appetite of a squad which, in the majority, have historically been accustomed only to disappointment and frustration.
“You get selfish after obtaining a goal, you get a taste for it,” the centre explained at the championship launch at The Hurlingham Club on the banks of London’s River Thames.
“It doesn’t mean that your ambition is any less, in fact it probably heightens it. Looking back at last year, I enjoyed all the trappings that came with winning; the celebrations and the general feeling in the country.
“It was great and if we can do that again, then why not? It’s better than not doing it again.”
The outpouring of emotion from the leaders of the so-called Golden Generation, such as O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara and Paul O’Connell, after that famous victory in Cardiff last March, was understandable.
Pain had been replaced by joy, and it is that latter emotion that the likes of Tommy Bowe, Rob Kearney and Tomás O’Leary have now become accustomed to.
O’Driscoll doesn’t begrudge his younger colleagues that, but he is adamant this is the time for Ireland to build a teak-tough mentality to mirror that of Munster and Leinster on the European stage.
“The older brigade have spoken about how the younger guys don’t really know the 10 years of disappointment that we went through,” laughs the 31-year-old O’Driscoll.
“You shouldn’t try to burn them or tell them about that. Let them go with the flow of winning.
“If they have that mentality, then let them breed that type of thinking into the guys below them. Then we’re heading in the right direction instead of saying ‘it was such a hard battle for 10 years and eventually we won it.’ If those young guys can win it early in their career and progress with that mindset, then that’s where you want to be.
“But during those tight games (against South Africa and Australia) in November, there was never any panic. There was an air of calmness that comes with experience. The more of that you have, the better.
“And as Irish people we don’t do middle ground; we’re at the very top or down the bottom. We’ve experienced being very low after the 2007 World Cup and it’s definitely a nicer feeling being at the top. We want to stay there as long as we possibly can. We’re owed nothing after winning it last year so we have to go and earn it again and start from scratch.”
O’Driscoll is well aware that Ireland are now, after years of underachievement, the scalp that everyone will be looking for. And, in dutiful style, he talks up all five opponents, claiming that every game will be tough.
That said, the feeling is that the two away games against England and, most of all, France in Paris on the second weekend of the season, will be crucial to their ambitions.
He adds: “In the eight times I’ve been at this launch since 2003, there has always been four or five teams capable of winning the Six Nations, depending on who starts well.
Nothing has changed this time. That’s why it’s so hard to win the five games. This (being reigning Grand Slam champions) is all new ground to me. I won’t look at anything differently. I won’t treat it any differently.
“You don’t retain anything, you give it back and you try to win it again. That’s exactly the way we’ll look at it this time.”
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