Waiting game finally over for Sean O’Brien

Forget the two operations on the same shoulder. Forget the infection. The months out of the game and in rehab. The elongating list of injuries on his CV and the questions over whether he is long for life as a professional rugby player.

Sean O’Brien is ready.

Tonight, in Cork, he walks back onto a rugby pitch for a competitive game for the first time since he banked 80 minutes against Glasgow Warriors in Scotstoun in September. He’s done his due diligence in recovering. He’s done waiting.

“No real doubts,” he says. “But I want to come back and show people that I can still rock on. I’m not going to go out like Tarzan and run around the place like a headless chicken.

“I want to be accurate and good at what my job is and get back to doing my basics well. It’s been a long time since I played a game of rugby so I’m going to be a bit rusty. That’s why those two or three games or hit-outs will stand to me big time.”

Those two or three games he mentions are tonight’s first run-out for the Wolfhounds, the still unconfirmed Leinster A friendly next week and the senior provincial side’s PRO12 engagement with the Dragons in mid-February.

That last one is pencilled in for the day after France visit the Aviva Stadium so, whatever happens this evening, O’Brien is looking towards March 1 and England’s arrival in Dublin as the earliest point of entry into Joe Schmidt’s 6 Nations plans.

Publicly, at least.

Though he is back long ahead of his scheduled return, slated for April, he has learned his lesson from the last ‘comeback’. Every I has been dotted and the last T crossed. It was Christmas 2013, during a game against Munster, when he dislocated his left shoulder. That, and a post-op infection, kept him inactive for over four months and, though he featured at the end of the last PRO12 campaign and at the start of this latest, he wasn’t fully right.

The infection had caused complications. Cue the second surgery.

“I’m probably better placed than I have been the last time. The last time I thought everything was where it should have been after the infection and all that jazz. It’s completely different this time; not an ounce of pain, nothing. Even after the operation, there was no pain, as such, compared to the first time.

“That is what has given me the confidence in the last few weeks to really go hard, to kick on. Even though I said the last time I felt good – and I did – I didn’t really know until I got back. I hadn’t done much contact the last time and when I got back it was very sore. This time is a different story. I’m feeling very confident with it now.”

A dozen players have been awarded their first caps in his absence, one-third of them in the back row. On the many days-off he spent out shooting with his dogs, O’Brien wasn’t counting on a place at the top of the queue on his return

“I think we’re going to play a lot more this year,” he predicted. “I think we’ll play a little bit more off the cuff. We’ll probably throw the ball around a little bit more, (although) I can’t say exactly what way we’re going to play. I know from Johnny (Sexton) and hearing the lads around the place that we probably are going to play a bit more open rugby than we have last year. If we play the same as we did last year we’ll end up third or fourth this year.”