Talent, durability and hunger keep magical double act ticking

They weren’t always the double act we know them as now.

Brian O’Driscoll was still 11 months away from making his Leinster debut when winger Gordon D’Arcy celebrated his senior bow in blue with a Heineken Cup try against Llanelli at Stradey Park in September 1998.

And when D’Arcy walked out in front of 79,547 people at the Stade de France to make his full Ireland debut in March of 2004 it was Kevin Maggs who stood at his side in the visitors’ midfield.

D’Arcy has partnered Keith Earls, Andrew Trimble and Fergus McFadden in the boiler room in the years since but his time in a green jersey will inevitably be framed by his partnership with the guy who puts on that 13 shirt in Dublin for one last time today.

This will be the 55th time they do their Starsky and Hutch routine.

Between the World Cup defeat of Namibia in September of 2007 and a loss to France nearly four years later, O’Driscoll was the man on his shoulder every one of the 23 times D’Arcy trotted out for his country.

That latter stat took even the Wexford native by surprise as he sat down to chat about a man he first met at a schools camp and with whom he was drafted into the senior Irish squad whilst still a teenager.

“Touching wood, there are certain people who are good in contact and they just deal with it a little bit better,” D’Arcy said when asked if we will ever see the like of their duo again. “I definitely think I am one of them and Brian is one of them. Someone like Jamie Heaslip is definitely one of them.

“We have picked up injuries but you don’t get to 140 caps without being reasonably durable. There will be guys who get a run at it again, there will be more competition for places. But if you get a guy who is talented, earns their spot and is as hungry as someone like Brian and myself have been there’s no reason why not.”

For over 15 years now they have hunted as a pair in their provincial and national midfields: making breaks, scoring tries and taking down men mostly bigger but rarely their better. There was no evolution, no real bedding-in period, just an early meeting of minds, talents and temperaments.

They just clicked. Like two pieces of Lego.

It’s ten years since they first partnered up for Ireland in the first XV. Like today, it was at Lansdowne Road. Wales were put to the sword with O’Driscoll touching down twice and only a Martyn Williams tap tackle preventing D’Arcy from claiming one of his own, having been preferred to the man who chaperoned him in Paris.

Maggs’ role shouldn’t be overlooked in O’Driscoll’s story – whom he partnered 38 times — nor in D’Arcy’s. The now 34-year-old D’Arcy spent three years as a bag holder with the squad, “having Kevin Maggs run over me”, before he assumed his jersey.

Watching the current Moseley coach for all those sessions provided D’Arcy with the template required to do it and he sees much of his old Bristol-born colleague in O’Driscoll’s hardness and in his willingness to serve the team rather than himself.

Yet, if Maggs’ presence and influence was considerable – and it certainly was — then O’Driscoll’s has been astronomical. Incalculable, perhaps. For D’Arcy, more than anyone else, it will be strange when his locker lies empty.

“On the pitch is one thing and that’s something you deal with when it happens but off the field it is quite a big character to take out. Probably one thing people don’t see is how funny he is. I have known the guy since we were 16, 17 in schools camps and we got asked in to train with the Irish team when we were 18, 19.

“You see the evolution of both of our characters. We wouldn’t have everything in common and we have probably become quite different as we have grown up — we are our own individuals — but I would struggle to think of anyone playing rugby at the moment and whose company I would enjoy more. It will be strange.”

As for himself, he has plans that stretch well beyond O’Driscoll’s farewell to Test rugby in Paris and the goodbyes to follow with Leinster come May. His form has been superb this season, those legs still pumping, even if he insists on picking holes in his efforts.

D’Arcy has been a devotee of mental preparation and exercise since a broken arm in 2008 gave him the time to explore that side of things and it led him via a handful of confusing books to the wise yet straightforward words and ways of Enda McNulty.

Sometimes, though, the mind can’t be cajoled or turned.

D’Arcy has seen guys conclude that their time is up whilst sitting in a changing-room and friends like Denis Hickie retire when their heads just weren’t in it anymore. Not him. Not yet. He speaks of a desperation to win today as he approaches the winter of his career.

“I am in a very, very good head space at the moment. I treat every game the exact same. I am probably in the position where I can look at each game like it is my last because I am not that far away from it. It could be, not through any fault of my own.

“But I could get injured on Saturday and drop out of the reckoning. At my age am I really going to force my way back in after six months out? There is a certain fear for me in that I want my last game to be a memorable one.”

No doubt O’Driscoll shares that thought, as they have done so much else.