Paul O’Connell hailed as ‘the best secondrow in the world’

Player, friend, team-mate, educator, motivator and standard-bearer – Donnacha Ryan knew Paul O’Connell in each one of those guises.

They rubbed shoulders, literally, in the red of Munster for more than a decade and since 2008 in the green of Ireland, stoking fires in the engine room for club and country.

Rather than viewing O’Connell as an encumbrance to his aspirations, Ryan understood that striving for the benchmarks the latter set in performance terms would ultimately make him a better player. He watched, listened and learned.

The Ireland players awoke on Tuesday morning to the formal announcement of the former Munster, Ireland and Lions captain’s decision to retire from rugby. They absorbed the news by swapping stories.

“I was shocked. I only heard about it this morning,” Ryan said. “I was talking to him a couple of weeks ago and he said it was tough, but the recovery was going okay. I imagine doing all that stuff by yourself would be tough going.”

Ryan offered his insight to the man and the player. “He was a great guy, a great leader. It was great to play alongside him, such a tremendous competitor, the ultimate professional who led by example.

“Being alongside him in the dressing room, getting ready [for matches], just made you raise your game. I never felt like I was competing against a different player, I always felt I was competing against him. He is the best secondrow in the world.

“His level of intelligence, it was incredible how he approached the game, the science he brought was amazing. To be a student of his was such an incentive for me to stay in Munster and sacrifice game time to have the ability to train underneath him and learn properly how to be a lineout caller.”

Given O’Connell’s assiduous preparation, the attention to detail – the story of him learning enough Afrikaans to be able to decipher the Springboks’ lineout calls for a Test match in 2009 offers a classic illustration – a natural fit would see him exchange playing for coaching.

Ryan chuckled: “I hear Young Munster under-eights are looking for someone, if he wants to start out somewhere easy,” before pointing to the wealth of knowledge that O’Connell would bring to coaching.

“He is a fantastic communicator, very, very positive. As a leader, the best thing he does is he gets you to do things you don’t want to do, and enjoy it at the same time. That was the mark of the heavy gains we got [in matches]; he would go to the well a lot.

“You would know full well he would go there and would be the first to do it. He led by example. Any club who are looking at adding to a coaching ticket would be knocking on his door.

“It’s a shame to see it didn’t work out for him in Toulon, but when your body is your business, that is the nature of the beast. I wish him all the best in whatever he decides to do.”

Conversation turns to the draw with Wales, the frustration of a poor 10 minutes at the end of the first half that allowed the visitors to clamber back into the game on the scoreboard, but also a willingness to keep the ball alive in pursuit of victory.

“I thought the guys showed good mettle there to keep going for it and put them [Wales] under pressure. We got into their half and they could have easily dived off their feet or something, but to be fair to Jerome [Garces], he refereed it well at the end, let the two teams sort it out themselves, and that’s what we want from a rugby playing point of view and a supporters’ point of view.”

The six-day turnaround to the game against France in Paris renders bodies bruised and battered, although Ryan pointed to yesterday's training as an open air ice bath, given the snow and freezing temperatures.

The players have completed the review of the Welsh match, identifying areas that can be improved but also acknowledging things that Ireland did well: seven line breaks being a major plus.

The focus now is firmly on France, with Ryan saying: “They’re also a big side, with a very good set-piece and very threatening backs. They have a different type of power and threw 19 offloads in the first half. That is a tremendous amount of offloads in test rugby. It’s a different prospect for us, but a refreshing focus.”

Nice and measured. O’Connell would approve.