O’Driscoll: Doom and gloom premature

MICK O’DRISCOLL has launched a passionate defence of Irish rugby in the wake of Munster and Leinster’s Heineken Cup exits.

Questions have been raised about Munster’s age profile and an alleged absence of decent home-grown front-row forwards nationwide since the European defeats to Biarritz and Toulouse earlier this month.

However O’Driscoll, who was named Player of the Year, at the Irish Examiner-sponsored Munster rugby awards on Sunday night insists that such doom and gloom is premature.