O'Driscoll still as hungry as ever

DONAL LENIHAN was the Irish team manager on the summer tour to Australia in 1999. He remembers this 20-year-old kid, who hadn’t yet lined out for Leinster, playing keep-up in a park opposite their Brisbane hotel. Lenihan recalled that the rookie was about to face centres Tim Horan and Danny Herbert in his first international game and he didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

Ten years on and O’Driscoll is about to play his 100th international match against Australia on Sunday. His 94th for Ireland as well as six Lions Test matches brings him to the venerable mark. But there is no softening around the edges, no hints that the Irish captain is less hungry now that the milometer is creeping up.

“Yeah I think if you don’t have a few nerves then the head’s not sharp,” says O’Driscoll with debutant prop Cian Healy listening intently from the other side of the table.

“Certainly playing against teams of the calibre of Australia, you have to be on the ball and if you’re eating your pre-match meal with no problems then there’s an issue there. You need to be forcing the food down, you need to have those few nerves in the stomach and a few butterflies. It focuses the mind and just gets you ready for combat.

“I remember not being too nervous, looking forward to it,” he says of that first cap. “I remember just really looking forward to the occasion. The nerves came on when the fireworks started going off as they (Australian team) came out and I wasn’t expecting that. But once the whistle went for the start of the game all of those nerves evaporated and you just get into what you’re comfortable with, and that’s playing.”

O’Driscoll is going through one of the most prosperous periods of his career. Injury free, his game is more tempered but he has the appetite and he’s enjoying it. It’s an enthusiasm that’s infectious enough to travel through the squad.

“I have a great hunger for the game at the moment and I just look forward to pulling on the green jersey again. Hopefully we can pick up where we left off in March,” he says as he faces into his 53rd Irish game as captain.