Jumping at the chance to take on the best

RUGBY: GERRY THORNLEYtalks to the Ireland secondrow who has earned his first start at the old venue with his recent form

IT’S A familiar sound and Mick O’Driscoll has long been acquainted with it; the collective gnashing of teeth whenever Paul O’Connell has been sidelined. His CV with Munster actually underlines how they have been blessed to have O’Driscoll’s abilities as much as his patience and perseverance.

Born in October 1978, you wonder did he ever curse his luck that the ensuing March and following October two blokes by the names of Donncha O’Callaghan and Paul O’Connell were born, never mind that his career largely coincided with Malcolm O’Kelly, Leo Cullen and, come to think of it, Bob Casey.

“Naw,” he smiles, “for me I suppose there’s been a lot of disappointments through my career but there have been a lot of great days as well so I wouldn’t change it for the world. Donncha and Paulie just happened to be one and two so that was the way it was, or the way it is or whatever.”

Nor has it been a case of the Munster secondrow, especially, being a closed shop. O’Driscoll’s tour de force for Munster in their recent Heineken Cup win over Toulon marked his 50th appearance in the tournament for his home province which, coupled with his seven games in the tournament for Perpignan, means he actually has three more Heineken Cup caps to his name than O’Connell. With 167 games for Munster, he’s also comfortably ahead of O’Connell’s tally of 110, and only two behind the indestructible and indefatigable O’Callaghan’s haul of 169.

“What can I do? You know what I mean. I’d rather be starting week in, week out. It’s not the case, it doesn’t happen but I get plenty of opportunities. I get plenty of starts so I’ve just got to get on with it. If Paulie is fit Paulie starts. He’s the captain and that’s the way it is. It’s disappointing at times, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve no regrets.”

Of his previous 19 caps, a dozen have been as a replacement. He made his debut as a replacement for Mick Galwey in the win over Romania in Bucharest in June 2001, but save for another appearance off the bench against Fiji in November 2002, it would be the November of the 2005-’06 season before he would win his third cap, also against Romania.

Indeed, O’Driscoll would reach his 28th birthday before eventually making his first start, at the Stadio Flaminio in Ireland’s 51-24 win before Elvis Vermeulen’s try would seal France the championship on points difference later that day.

So, in point of fact, today will be O’Driscoll’s first start at what we used to know as Lansdowne Road – his one and only previous start on home soil was in the win over Scotland at Croke Park three seasons ago.

It’s hard to credit that it is fully eight seasons since O’Driscoll was a key figure and try-scorer in the Miracle Match when Munster beat Gloucester by 33-6 before upping and leaving for Perpignan in Catalonia. It wasn’t that he was fed up with the pecking order at Munster, for if that was the case he wouldn’t have come home two years later.

“There was no other reason I went other than I wanted a change. I wanted to be somewhere else for a couple of years, see what was out there, see what it was like, you know, and I wouldn’t have changed that for the world.

“Then the opportunity came to come back to Munster and I suppose it’s always nice to be at home. That’s the other side of it, I mean I could just as easily have stayed in France for another couple of years.”

What dissuaded him from doing so was that the coach who signed him, Olivier Saiset, was then replaced in O’Driscoll’s second season in Catalonia and he fell out of favour. “I also had a lot of bad injuries. I dislocated my shoulder so I was out for six months with that and then I did my medial ligaments and I did my ankle ligaments so in total I was injured for about 13 of the 24 months, so that didn’t help. But I still really enjoyed my time there, and I think I played 35 or 38 games or something.”

THE LIFE OF a professional 24-year-old sportsman can be a privileged and closeted one, and he agrees it was as much a life experience as a rugby one which helped make him grow up more quickly. “You learn a lot about yourself when you’re plonked in the middle of nowhere, no one with you. My girlfriend at the time, Alice, who is now my wife, she didn’t come over with me. There were a couple of nights where I was out for dinner for a table for one.”

He’d travelled over with some Leaving Cert French but chucked into a fiercely proud club with a strong local identity – O’Driscoll was one of only six non-French players in the squad – he had little option but to brush up, and fast.

“That’s what you do when you’re there on your own, and when you have to learn it, you pick it up very quickly then.”

Did it make him a better player as well? “A lot of people have asked me that over the years. It’s hard to say, because if I was at home I probably would have played possibly even more rugby. You don’t know is the answer but I think, overall, it probably did. Personally that would be my opinion.”

It had also been while at school at Pres Cork that O’Driscoll had first taken to rugby. There had been some rugby on the mother’s side of his family; his uncle Con O’Sullivan having played for Constitution, but, growing up in Kilcrea in Ovens, to the west of Cork city, O’Driscoll mostly played Gaelic football and hurling in his formative years.

The second youngest of six, including four sisters, (“It was tough growing up, I can tell you,” he says with a laugh) it was following in the footsteps of his brother John who played prop for Pres and Constitution, which kick-started his own interest.

While at Pres, he won a Munster Schools’ Senior Cup and played for the Munster schools, before spending three years at UCC, where rugby rather superseded his studies. “I left school a year early to do accountancy, unfortunately. I hated every minute of it,” he says, laughing. “Law was my first choice but I didn’t have enough points for law so I took second choice instead of going back to school.”

His timing was good though. In his second year at UCC he earned a development contract with Munster, while playing AIL every week. “Rugby was only going professional at the time. It was still technically amateur and this was still in the days where you would get on the train leaving Dublin and there’d be 30 kegs or 30 slabs of beer thrown on the table. I’m telling you we’ve lost a bit of that now.”

IN HIS FIRST season back from France in 2005, O’Driscoll held the fort while O’Connell was sidelined for Munster’s first four pool games in the Heineken Cup, and also started 17 Celtic League games. He came on for Denis Leamy before half-time in the Heineken Cup quarter-final, before having to kick his heels for 80 minutes in both the semi-final against Leinster at Lansdowne Road and when Munster beat Biarritz to reach their holy grail in the final.

When they regained their crown two seasons later, O’Driscoll stood in for O’Connell in all six pool games in the Group of Death against Clermont, Wasps and Llanelli; he started all but three and played in all but one of their Magners League-winning campaign two seasons ago and brilliantly captained Munster in their memorable set-to with the All Blacks that season.

He has probably never played better for Ireland than in his most recent outing, against the Wallabies in June, when making a phenomenal 24 tackles in his 68 minutes on the pitch.

Like the rest of us, though, O’Driscoll himself admits six or eight weeks ago the notion of him starting today would have left him “bemused”. But all changed when the Munster lineout was dissected against London Irish, whereupon his recent efforts against Toulon (when augmenting his lineout and restart work, and try, with 14 tackles) was a nudge in the ribs for Declan Kidney and co.

“But it’s like I keep saying, there are literally four international locks at Munster, so you could nearly be starting an international game one week or nearly playing for your club. It’s just the way it is so. For me the motivating factor was if we lost that game against Toulon we were out of Europe.”

His, eh, reward, is a meeting with the famed Bakkies Botha-Victor Matfield combination – assuredly the most dominant lineout in Test rugby for much of the last four or five years – and thus one of the most daunting assignments of his career. “Look, it’s a tough challenge. There’s no doubt about it, but I’m hugely looking forward to it, there’s no doubt about that. A lot of people are saying they’re the best. They’re definitely up there anyway, but you’ve just got to take these challenges on.”

In what could be one of the defining days of O’Driscoll’s career, were it to go well for him today it could mean a few belated bouquets coming his way; not that such recognition bothers him remotely. “Anyone who knows me knows it doesn’t. Generally speaking, I don’t do a lot of interviews. To be honest, I’m not interested, and it’s not a media thing, or it’s not anything against the media guys. Playing rugby for me is playing for the team and the enjoyment of that. I’m not particularly bothered by anything else, I just enjoy the winning and . . . ,” his voice trails off.

Recognition from your peers? “Absolutely, after that then I’m not too bothered.”

He’s always had that, in spades.