O’Driscoll keen as ever for Tour action

BRIAN O’DRISCOLL will not be involved in tomorrow night’s clash of Ireland and the Barbarians at Thomond Park but he’s not complaining.

The centre has been playing top-class, high-intensity rugby for the best part of the last 12 months, a series that included a Lions Tour, a rigorous Six Nations Championship and intensive Heineken Cup and Magners League campaigns.

He gets married next month and surely, then, couldn’t be blamed for regarding a tour of the Southern Hemisphere, during which his team takes on New Zealand, the Maori and Australia in the space of a fortnight as a bridge too far.