Timeless O’Driscoll becomes Ireland’s Benjamin Button

Players often talk about treating their next game as if it was their last but when you’re Brian O’Driscoll and the clock is ticking on a glittering career, the cliché becomes a harsh reality.

And so it was yesterday as O’Driscoll, 35, embarked on his final Six Nations campaign before riding off into the sunset of retirement at the end of this season. He took to the field for a record 129th time in an Ireland jersey and just as he has done for the previous 128 he played as if life his depended on it.

For a change, the match statistics bore that out. O’Driscoll, the oldest player on the field, led the tackle count with 12% of his team’s total tally of 116. In fact, across the three Six Nations games played over the opening weekend of the 2014 championship, only Italy lock Quintin Guildenhuys matched him.

Not everything went the great one’s way, and Joe Schmidt picked up on a loose pass or two, but yet again in terms of putting heart and soul into Ireland’s cause there were few who could match his intent.

“He stacked up about 14 tackles and I think he did them pretty effectively,” Schmidt said. “He ended up having to tackle guys like Dave Denton coming around the corner and, to be honest, we did expect that it may turn out like that.

“I thought he did a fantastic offensive tackle towards the end of game, when if they had broken the line they might have got close enough to have one last shot at us. But he took all that time and space away. He wrapped the guy up, got to his feet, stole the ball. That’s the sort of quality that he brings. It wasn’t just the quality of his tackle, it was the quality of what he did post-tackle that makes him great value.

“I think by his own standards there were a couple of loose passes, and he’ll look to tidy that up. Again he didn’t play last weekend, and I think he’s a player who plays better when he’s had a couple of games under his belt.”

Schmidt’s attention to detail is well chronicled but even he might have expected too much of O’Driscoll, when asked if the veteran was playing as if he were 35 going on 25, he replied: “Yea, well if he can be 24 next week, I think we’ll get the perfect...”

At that point captain Jamie Heaslip interrupted to suggest O’Driscoll was “Benjamin Button,” the film character who instead of ageing, grew younger with every passing year.

“Yeah,” agreed Schmidt, “Brian Button. Next best thing.”