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Irish lionheart is leading man
By McGreevy
The English fan beside me in a pub in Clapham in south London spoke a fraction too soon. “O’Driscoll’s done nothing in the second-half,” he said.
He had hardly finished his words when Denis Hickie made a lightning break through the English cover up to the 22. A quick off-load to Peter Stringer, then an even quicker pass to Geordan Murphy and the full-back made a few more yards.
Outside him was Brian O’Driscoll. With his left hand, the Irish captain took the pass and with the right side took a body swerve that left Charlie Hodgson standing.
There was hardly a foot between him and the touchline, but he made it. It was O’Driscoll’s first try against England and his 26th for Ireland, an all-time record.
Ian Botham once famously said that form is temporary, class is permanent. O’Driscoll didn’t have the type of game on Sunday that makes him the most exciting player in the world rugby — he may have been slightly inhibited by his hamstring injury — but in one devastating burst he showed why he is the outstanding Irish player of his generation.
It was not the first game in this RBS Six Nations where O’Driscoll’s intervention proved decisive. Ireland were struggling in Rome against Italy when he dummied a couple of Italian players and ran on to create the space for Geordan Murphy to score in the first half.
In the second-half when Ireland were again spluttering, O’Driscoll took out three Italian players with a decisive break. He set up Shane Horgan whose overhead pass found Peter Stringer. His try will be a highlight of the Grand Slam video if we ever get that far.
It isn’t just the match-winning breaks and tries which make O’Driscoll such a strong contender for the captaincy of the British and Irish Lions this summer. Like all great players in whatever sport, he does not take his talent for granted.
His capacity to do the unspectacular things, his voracious appetite for work on the pitch and particularly his prodigious tackle count mark him out as a real leader.
With his quintessential “you know” south Dublin public school accent and his bleach blonde hair, O’Driscoll looks and sounds like a dilettante.
He could so easily have become a Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, the notorious fictionalised rugger-bugger character in The Sunday Tribune who spends his time getting trashed and chasing women in southside Dublin nightclubs.
O’Driscoll is Ireland’s only home-based sporting superstar and there was a danger a couple of years ago that his life would become a Beckham-like celebrity circus.
His high-profile relationship with model Glenda Gilson was the talk of the tabloids and he was voted Ireland’s sexiest man.
With a self-awareness all too lacking in today’s celebrity-obsessed culture, he took a step back and realised that he must eschew such distractions.
He told The Sunday Times last weekend: “I do regret the sexiest-man bit. Stupid. It’s not part of what a professional rugby player should be and it’s part of what I am.
“There are things you do and when you look back you say, ‘That was part of growing’. That’s the best you can say about that.”
O’Driscoll is still only 26. He has been Irish captain since he was 23. It’s an honour which sits lightly on his broad shoulders. We’ve won 15 of the 19 encounters with him as captain.
In many ways O’Driscoll personifies everything about this present Irish team which is on the verge of being the best in our history.
On Sunday, Ireland won a match they scarcely deserved to win. Less focused Irish teams in the past would have folded under the incessant English pressure. Not this team though. They tackled like demons and rode their luck. Denis Hickie’s double tackle on Mark Cueto and then Josh Lewsey summed it all up.
There are talented individuals everywhere you look in this Irish team, but it is their collective will to win that marks them out. They are contemptuous of the old Irish tradition of offering spirit instead of organisa-tion and perspiration not preparation.
O’Driscoll, like another Irish sporting hero Roy Keane, believes Irish teams shouldn’t know their place.
“I’ve never been one to buy into this inferiority-complex thing,” he said, revealing how Ireland won the Under-19 World Cup in France because they believed they could win it.
Ireland are on the verge of a first Grand Slam since 1948. Given the competitive nature of the modern-day game, it would mark the greatest achievement in the history of Irish rugby.
I believe they will do it and when they do, Brian O’Driscoll will be a worthy captain.
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