Defeat not an option for Victor

Interview: Gerry Thornley talks to Victor Costello, who lapsed intointernational obscurity before returning as a crucial player in the Irishset-up.

For three years, supposedly in his prime physically, he was surplus to requirements. Whereupon he suddenly became one of Ireland's mainstays, so much so that fingers were crossed and maybe even a few prayers said for his fitness this weekend. Your country doesn't want you? Now it's your country needs you, Victor.

It's a nice story of course, and being the suckers we are for nice stories, we journalists lap it up. What makes it more appealing is the subject himself, for Costello is your quintessential nice bloke, a genuine, generous and genial giant of a man, with an unmistakeable trait of loyalty running through him, and, well, this has been a comeback of Lazarus-like proportions.

Costello has enjoyed surprising people who would have doubted he could mount his latest comeback. "I probably would have been a self-doubter. I presume that's better than being an arrogant big-head."

You're not supposed to play your best rugby in your 30s, but Costello has always been a little different. He took flight to London Irish when the game went professional, but he never really took to professionalism. Even for this latest and most effective reincarnation, everything had to be just right.

A self-confessed homebird, at Leinster and Donnybrook, he trains, plays with, and plays in front of, friends. Even in this scenario he needs outside interests, his own business, building a house in his Leitrim hideaway, collecting classic cars.

Nor would he be the easiest to coach. "Some players you don't need to say a word to," admits the Leinster forward coach, Willie Anderson, but Costello isn't one of them. Specialist training, analysing himself and opponents, all ensured a more professional outlook. He needs cajoling, not chastising. He thrives on confidence. Give him the ball early on. Better still if he makes a break. Then it's lift-off time.

"He's a loyal fellow, and a bright lad," says Anderson. "I had him briefly at London Irish and he was only half the player that he is now. I can honestly say it's been an honour to coach him. The only other Irish forward I can think of who has that zip over the first 20 is Keith Wood."

With his combination of pace and power, sporting success always came easy, be it rugby or throwing the shot putt in the 1992 Olympics. "Absolutely. I was throwing the shot farther than guys twice my size but all I wanted to do was get to the Olympics and get out, because rugby was where I wanted to be." The shot putt was too selfish, self-centred and lonely an existence for him.

A survivor from the amateur days, Costello admits, however, he struggled to come to terms with the bright lights of London Irish, especially when, for the first half of the season he was there, Clive Woodward was the coach.

"I didn't quite understand him and he didn't quite understand me. I've seen him a few times since, and we shake hands. I've a lot of time for the guy. He tried to make us do things we just couldn't do at London Irish. I think he was a bit ahead of us," says Costello, chuckling. "He bolted, and then I bolted back home, so we had that much in common anyway."

But seeing the end of his career has concentrated the mind. So too real competition for places, with Des Dillon and Aidan McCullen upping the ante in the Leinster back-row.

Fair play to Eddie O'Sullivan. The word on the Blackrock grapevine when O'Sullivan became Irish coach was that Costello would be history. Years before, the player left Stradbrook as O'Sullivan arrived, prompting rumours of a rift.

Coincidence and idle gossip, it transpires. O'Sullivan brought him into the fold, took him on last summer's training camp in Poland, asked him if he wanted to play out his career with the A team, told him what he had to do, and told him he'd get a chance. Costello sat down with video analyst Mervyn Murphy and went through his game with a toothcomb.

"There were times when I was drifting in and out of games. I thought that was my job and I was happy enough, but I was probably missing out on another 10 or 15 minutes work that could have been done." He grasped his chance with a virtuoso display in the win over Australia. Just as well, as the stakes were bigger for the comeback kid than anyone else.

"Luckily, I didn't think about it that way too much. But it was a huge game and from that I can take a lot of pride and character. And so we keep going, you know?"

Now, after a week without him, we're pining for him. Costello appreciates the ironic turnaround, appreciates the chance even more.

He talks of concentrating on getting himself right mentally, otherwise "it could be a horror story" as he puts it.

"I thought I'd get back in for the Romanias and the Georgias, or if Axel (Anthony Foley) was injured. I didn't think of an opportunity of a Grand Slam at all and I certainly didn't think I'd be doing a lap of honour around Lansdowne Road after beating the world champions. So it's been one dream after another, with the potential of the ultimate this Sunday.

"This week is the final hurdle," he continues, in hushed tones. "You're bursting with pride, you've a lot of emotions, you know the whole country is behind you and you don't want to let people down. You do the work to make sure you don't let people down. This team (England) are the best team in the world, but we can beat them. We're a bloody good side ourselves."

He was reared in Stepaside, in a small close-knit family, and his character reflects well on his parents, Paddy and Marie. The sporting genes were good too. His father played for Ireland once, as well as competing in the shot putt, and his sister Suzanne was an international sprinter of repute.

Paddy, who passed away six years ago, was more than a father. A mentor and coach, father and brother. Costello tells the story of how he strove to outdo his father's mark in the shot putt, and how one day they went home, sat down in the kitchen, disputed and amended metric distances. Eventually Paddy conceded that Victor had out-thrown him.

"I wobbled a bit when he died in terms of rugby, to find my feet, because he was always at every game. From community games out in Mosney, in Santry, in Willow Park, whatever I was doing, be it the shittiest, crappiest shot putt event, in the middle of nowhere, he would be at it.

"Those are great, fond memories, and I'm very close to my mother and sister - she's my best mate - but in terms of sport, I wobbled a little bit and then got back on track. Within a month I was playing for Ireland against Canada at Lansdowne Road. It was hard because he wasn't there."

His father was the one whose constructive criticism he would value most, but without him he reckons he's had to mature 10 years in half that time. Even now Costello knows he's watching over him.

"At times like this, when you go on the bus to Lansdowne Road, you wish he was here but at the same time you know he is. The first match I played after he died was against Canada and for once he wasn't in the stand, but he was in the dressing-room.

"I believe that. A lot of positive things have happened to me since, and I know I wasn't alone doing them."

He allows himself most time for reflection in Leitrim , where a former St Mary's team-mate, Gary Lavin, took a group of them seven years ago, and he hasn't stopped going back. He'll have his own modern, two-storey, five-bedroom house built there in about three months. He loves his waterports, the lakes there, and apologises for the latest pitch on behalf of the county.

"I have a house on the lake and a building site beside it. When you get a chance to build a house you do it right, and I'm doing this right. It's a beautiful house and the views are just magnificent. At the end of the garden I've a jetty and a boat.

"Cruising up the lakes, when you can't see a road or a village for miles, you've no idea where the hell you are, but you meet people on other cruisers. It might be a sunny day - it doesn't happen that often but the Irish enjoy sunny days more than anyone else in the world - and then maybe a barbecue with friends that evening."

He still has the big boy in him. Vroom, vroom; if it isn't boats it's cars. He has three BMW classic cars from the 1980s in his budding collection.

"I take them out for the odd drive. They don't make cars like they did back then. Restoring them is a long process, but some day I'll have them all finished and polished. I could talk about boats and cars all day."

Sorry, Victor, back to the rugby. Hardly mundane though. In the expectation that he can carry a few of the all-whites on his broad back over the gain line today, he carries a huge load alright, but England will know that better than anyone, and two years ago they read The Victor Rumble like a book.

"I'd like to think I'm a better player now," is all he'll say. "For me it's very much about the present and the future.

"I look back and this new reincarnation makes me have no regrets.

"I am enjoying everything about it and I want it to last, because I know things don't last for ever. We as a team, and Leinster and Munster, have huge opportunities this year between this, the Heineken Cup and the World Cup.

"The profile of rugby has gone up so high in Ireland and what better way to start than winning a Grand Slam? I'm privileged and honoured to be part of this whole set-up, and I'm going to work hard to make sure it works. Losing or throwing it away isn't an option, and that's the way it has to be."