BOD puts all thoughts of an ‘afterlife’ aside

And now, the end is near. A year on from the interminable ‘will-he-won’t-he retire’ narrative that permeated Brian O’Driscoll’s Six Nations — and the entire season — we know for sure that the great man won’t be back this way again.

Yesterday was about putting one distraction aside before his last stint in green.

The Warren Gatland question — or 10 of them — was put to bed with a UN-like diplomacy. Other invitations to reminisce were humoured with good grace.

He spoke about what the Six Nations means to him, how an Ireland-France game at Lansdowne Road in the early 1990s had sparked his love for the game and how Ireland’s failure to win more than one championship during his time rankles.

Inevitably, he was asked about the future too.

Coaching still doesn’t “float my boat” but he has parked all thoughts of what he termed the “afterlife” for now, having pondered it more than he would have liked over Christmas.

O’Driscoll would have preferred to field questions about Sunday’s game against Scotland, but it doesn’t work like that.

He knows as much so, try as he might, he found himself instead dragged forward to contemplate the end game.

Odds are that will come, in an Ireland context, against France in Paris, but then Ronan O’Gara could never have seen his Test career ending when and where it did with what proved to be an ill-fated curtain call against the Scots.

Does he harbour any fears of something similar?

Not on your life.

“No because that was... I can’t foresee when the last game is and people keep talking to me about, ‘oh, you know, we’re thinking about going over to France or to Paris for your last game’. Jesus, maybe they’re sages, I don’t know.

“Maybe they can see the future because I have absolutely no idea when my last game for Ireland will be. For all I know my last game for Ireland could [have been] against the All Blacks so you have to look at the next opportunity to play as if it could be your last, so take hold of it.”

There are those who feel his time has already passed.

Fifteen years of world-class excellence count for little in the here and now and O’Driscoll’s form has been far from sparkling. Recent outings with Leinster have been remarkable for his relative anonymity.

His form he describes as good but “improvable” and he is certainly in a better place to perform now than last November given he has six games under his belt leading into this Test window as opposed to the 73 minutes banked last time.

“I probably haven’t had my hands on the ball a huge amount over the last few weeks,” he admitted, “so I am going to try and do that a bit more and try and get back to some of my strengths.

“Try and take people on and beat them and get the ball out of the tackle, off-loading. It is not about trying to star as it is about doing the job as best you and being a cog in the wheel.

“It is about trying to play to your strengths and my strengths haven’t changed dramatically over the years. I need to just focus on making sure I’m doing the best I can for the team”

It will be intriguing to watch.

Joe Schmidt gave notice of his determination to develop the side’s strength in depth with his team selections last November and few areas need a Plan B drawn up as urgently as outside-centre, where challengers have been frustrated for so long.

O’Driscoll name-checked all the usual candidates yesterday and, who knows, it may be that we will be treated to the only once-seen-before sight of O’Driscoll starting an Irish game off the bench as the head coach looks beyond the life of Brian.

All of which brings us neatly, if indirectly, back to the summer, to Gatland and to the volcanic eruption that greeted his absence from that Lions 23. Would it at least serve some purpose were the unthinkable to happen again?

“I could probably empathise with people a bit more having experienced it, for sure, and understand the disappointment that comes with being dropped. But no player is incapable of being dropped because you have to add value to the team and when you cease to add value there’s someone else who can add value.

“So, that goes for me, that goes for everybody, right through to Jamie [Heaslip] to Paulie [O’Connell], to guys who have captained their provinces and captained Ireland. It’s no different. That’s why you have to keep your standards as high as you would hope them to be.”

He’s not done yet.