O’Driscoll: Flutey caused my collision with O’Connell

IRELAND rugby captain Brian O’Driscoll feels his collision with Paul O’Connell in the recent victory over England at Twickenham was caused by English centre Riki Flutey.

O’Driscoll was on the ground late in the game when he took a heavy knock to the head from O’Connell’s knee, but he said on his blog yesterday that if Flutey – a transfer target for Munster – had not tripped him he wouldn’t have had O’Connell running into him.

“As for the blame game, I’m beginning to come round to the suggestion that Riki Flutey is the villain of the piece,” said O’Driscoll. “If he had not tripped me, I think I would have collected the chip ahead comfortably and not found myself scrambling around unaware that I was about to become road-kill.

“I’m not totally exonerating Paulie but there is mitigation involved in our collision.”

O’Driscoll also described the subsequent cognitive test he had to undergo to prove he was fit to resume his place with Ireland.

“What does it say about me that I got a better score on the cognitive test I undertook after Twickenham last weekend than the pre-season equivalent? Perhaps I’m getting smarter with age!

“Seriously though, it is a rigorous examination of concentration and memory and for a moment or two during the test I was transported back to Mr Byrne’s class in primary school. You do have to have all your faculties to pass muster.”

O’Driscoll pointed out that despite the knock, he was well enough to attend the post-match banquet that evening.

“Having asked Paulie to step into the breach and deliver the captain’s speech at the post-match banquet in France, I felt it wasn’t fair to do that to him again after the England game.

“I went to the dinner, spoke and immediately left to go back to the team hotel in Chiswick. Given that I wasn’t going to have a drink there were not too many pangs of conscience when I tucked into a burger.

“I didn’t really get a chance to talk to anyone at the dinner but that was probably as much to do with the way I was feeling after contracting a bug/virus prior to the match. I wasn’t very talkative.”

The Ireland captain admitted that his illness was severe enough to make his participation in the game “a minor achievement”.

He said: “I suppose I was happy enough just making the game, a minor achievement in my own head. I was thankful to see the rain because it slowed the game down a bit. The illness was definitely a distraction and I was grateful to Paulie and Jamie (Heaslip), amongst others, who did most of the talking prior to the match. I think I managed to camouflage the fact that I wasn’t feeling great on the pitch reasonably well.”