Record-breaking O’Kelly calls time on illustrious career

WITH words of praise ringing in his ears from Leinster’s coaching and playing staff, Malcolm O’Kelly yesterday officially announced his retirement for the end of the season after a long and distinguished career, 15 of them as a professional player.

Leinster coach Michael Cheika and playing colleagues Eoin Reddan and Kevin McLaughlin, all paid homage to a man described by Cheika as a model professional.

“Everyone knows what he brought to the game. He has been a professional for a long time and the fact that he is in line to start the match against Munster this weekend pretty much says it all about him, considering he started out so long ago,” said the coach.

The 35 year-old admitted it was a hard decision. He has enjoyed a record-breaking career: 186 caps for Leinster whom he helped to Heineken Cup and Magners League titles, 92 caps for Ireland, including participation in Triple Crown and Grand Slam victories and also won his place on two British and Irish Lions squads for whom he won five further international caps between 2001 and 2005.

“You think you can go on forever and there is a certain amount of ‘Yeah, I can keep playing’,” said O’Driscoll yesterday. “But you have to look at your performances and realistically what I can still offer, how much I have to do and how often I can produce that.

“It was probably not really there any more. I was having to work extremely hard and not getting a huge amount of return any more. You’re fighting a harder and harder battle.

“I feel I’ve done a lot for Leinster over the years and now is the right time to move on. Leinster are in great shape at the moment, they have a stock of really good up-and-coming second rows and hopefully I can input there at some stage and give back a little bit, but on a playing front this will be my last season. I’m in reasonably good shape, and for a normal, run-of-the- mill guy who is 35 I’m in absolutely excellent shape. But you’re dealing in a peak-performance environment and the Leinster team are top athletes.”

O’Kelly recalled recent events to highlight his love and enjoyment of the big occasions: “There are very obvious high points. The Heineken Cup win, the semi-final, that whole season was full of highs and lows. The last few seasons, I know they’re so fresh, but for me they’ve been the biggest challenge.”

Cheika was grateful for the opportunity of working with O’Kelly: “On a personal level from the first day I came in, Malcolm was open to change and he helped me in making changes; he is not the captain type of player but he is nonetheless very influential, always wanted to become better and wanted the team to become better.

“He is still in great nick, he still has a great engine and I think that’s a huge tribute to the way he has looked after himself. There are some things about him that go unnoticed; for instance his locking of the scrum that we’re going to miss. A few of the young bucks have come to try to knock him off his perch and haven’t been able to do it as yet, so I think that’s a great tribute to him.”

Reddan joined in with praise when remembering playing against O’Kelly and concluding that he preferred playing on the same team as him: “He is a great player who has played a huge role in the development of any team he was associated with; it’s the end of an era but he has a lot of very good things to look back on,” he said.

Meanwhile, McLaughlin said: “Malcolm has been a huge influence on this Leinster team and, indeed, on my career; it’s obviously going to be an emotional finish for him and surely gives us an added incentive to try to finish the season well for him and Girvan (Dempsey), who is also retiring.”