O'Driscoll back at the top table

"I am. No bother," said Brian O'Driscoll yesterday. The Irish captain's short response to a question relating to whether he was 100 per cent fit seemed more one of satisfaction than an attempt to be curt, writes Johnny Watterson.

The outside centre even added that he almost played against France two weeks ago. Cue bar room discussions about the final outcome had that been the case. "I was very close," he said. "It was one of the more difficult decisions to be made. But I think it was the right one. It was too much of a risk. I could have been doing more damage to it, so it was decided after a hard fitness test on Friday that I was better off with another fortnight off."

Overall there was a sense of mild relief that the old captain was back at the top table making sense of the usual gamut of questions that ranged from interesting to banal. So much the front man both on and off pitch for this team, O'Driscoll's return not only stiffens the centre position with Gordon D'Arcy but returns Shane Horgan to the right wing, where he had been devastatingly effective over recent months. No doubt that the perception of a team with O'Driscoll in it is one with a much greater reach.

While the defeat to France without him has removed the well-ventilated aspiration to win the first Irish Grand Slam since 1948, there are other ambitions still very much alive in the Irish camp.

"You could look at it (French defeat) a few different ways," said the Irish captain. "There isn't still the hype of our Grand Slam hopes that we openly spoke about before the competition kicked off. So I suppose there is less pressure on us from that point of view.

"On the flip side we've only got two games in Croke Park this year and we've lost the first of them so we don't want the inaugural year at Croke Park to end two games, two losses."

What O'Driscoll chooses to take out of the last match, from his spectator viewpoint, is not the final deflating 30 seconds of play but the way Ireland ground out the game when they could not find the rhythm or cohesion to string together phases. His view is that the Irish default setting is, well, much like his own; highly effective.

"In the first half we went in two points down and we hadn't played any rugby, so there was no reason to worry. I knew at some stage we were probably going to put together some phases and play the way we can. It was one of those tough games you have to dog out. For 78 minutes things were going reasonably well. It was always only ever going to be a one score game. As it worked out, it worked against us."

England represent a different challenge. Coming to Dublin with low-key hopes of snatching a Grand Slam, Ireland could be their pivotal game in that objective; one that would be seen as nothing short of audacious in the light of their autumn play. At the heart of that, is the simultaneous renaissance of England outhalf Jonny Wilkinson. "He seems to have picked up where he left off the last time he was in an English jersey. He controls things so well and he's a pivotal character," said O'Driscoll, adding: "That's the understatement of the year. But he's massively important to them and I don't envisage it being any different this time around.

"His performance against Scotland wasn't too shabby," added O'Driscoll, who has played alongside Wilkinson and has a deep respect for him. "I think you've got to give him time coming back into international rugby. Three years in the wilderness . . . it's going to take it's toll and that's why I thought his performance against Scotland was all the more remarkable. It shows how mentally tough the guy must be to come in and put in a performance under the pressure he must have been under. I imagine he'll get consistently better the more games he plays."