O’Donnell ready to step up

“Follow that,” quipped Robin Copeland two days ago as he wrapped up his media duties at Ireland’s team base and breezed out the door past Tommy O’Donnell.

All the Munster flanker could do was laugh.

O’Donnell had been made wait around for his turn to speak while a rapt press corp quizzed his new Irish team-mate about his extraordinary rise from journeyman pro in England’s second tier to the Ireland senior squad.

Copeland was holding fort on the mushrooms that grew in his bathroom during his time at Plymouth Albion when his team-mate popped his head around the door, O’Donnell would have known then that he could hardly better a tale like that.

No-one in Joe Schmidt’s squad could.

But if it fazed him, it didn’t show.

O’Donnell’s progression from Cahir GAA stock to Munster rock and Ireland contender is only slightly less likely than that of Copeland’s and heaven knows he has had tough acts to follow already.

Anthony Foley, his head coach today when the Wolfhounds take on England Saxons, was his captain the day in September 2007 when he made a three-minute Munster debut off the bench in Musgrave Park.

Foley’s career was winding down by then but that season would finish with the province as European champions and a triumvirate of Alan Quinlan, David Wallace and Denis Leamy in situ in the back row.

Patience hasn’t just been a virtue, but a necessity.

Over four years passed before he made his own Heineken Cup bow but progression since has been so swift that he now finds himself being put forward in quarters as the man to step into the injured Seán O’Brien’s shoes for the Six Nations.

“It really intensified the battle between myself and Chris [Henry] and Jordi [Murphy] has been hitting great form as well,” he says of O’Brien’s absence. “He has had some great games at Leinster. It’s a great position for Ireland to be in at the moment that we have got four sevens but losing Seán is obviously a big loss in terms of what he brings.”

Munster’s player of the year last term, O’Donnell built on that with his first two caps on Ireland’s North American tour but his plans to kick on were scuppered by a knee injury which cost him any part of the November internationals.

All in all, he gives the impression that he has yet to find his groove in green as a start with the Wolfhounds against the Saxons this time last year came and went without the Tipperary man fully exploiting the chance.

“A year on I am a lot more confident,” he insists. “There is no room to sit back. Last year I was a bit more overawed. Last year in Galway I was on a five-day turnaround so I had less time to learn the terminology.

“It was my first time in camp. This time I’ve been in camp a couple of times. I know the terminology, I know what to do.

“I know the work that needs to be done, I just need to take the opportunity.”

He sounds ready — and looks it, too.

It was his display against Harlequins last April that made the wider world sit up and really take notice but O’Donnell’s stock had been soaring ever since a scintillating performance at home to Glasgow in early December.

After that, the 26-year-old found himself looking at players he had played with and against at AIL and B&I Cup levels and believing he matched and even bettered them and could do so again.

Tonight is another chance to shine. For everyone.

“It is pretty much a lot of the guys who played on the summer tour and the guys who played on [the Emerging Ireland] tour to Georgia who are coming through and getting the opportunities.

“It’s an opportunity for whoever gets the nod. It’s a case of go out and impress. I haven’t had a chance to play with Joe [Schmidt] as the coach yet so I need to nail down what my role is and go out and show what I can do.”

IRELAND WOLFHOUNDS: F Jones (Munster), F McFadden (Leinster), R Henshaw (Connacht), D Cave (Ulster), C Gilroy (Ulster), I Madigan (Leinster), I Boss (Leinster); D Kilcoyne (Munster), R Herring (Ulster), M Moore (Leinster), I Henderson (Ulster), D Tuohy (Ulster), R Ruddock (Leinster, capt), T O’Donnell (Munster), R Copeland (Cardiff Blues).

Replacements: R Strauss (Leinster), J McGrath (Leinster), S Archer (Munster), R Diack (Ulster), J Murphy (Leinster), K Marmion (Connacht), I Keatley (Munster), S Zebo (Munster).

ENGLAND SAXONS: E Daly (Wasps); A Watson (Bath), M Hopper (Harlequins), S Hill (Exeter), C Sharples (Gloucester); F Burns (Gloucester), J Simpson (Wasps); A Waller (Northampton), J George (Saracens), T Mercey (Northampton), C Matthews (Harlequins), G Kruis (Saracens), C Clark (Northampton, capt), L Wallace (Harlequins), D Ewers (Exeter).

Replacements: D Ward (H’quins), N Catt (Bath), S Wilson (Newcastle), E Stooke (Gloucester), S Dickinson (Northampton), D Lewis (Exeter), H Slade (Exeter), R Miller (Sale).