RUGBY:The Ireland secondrow is in full flow and his usual mischievous self, writes JOHNNY WATTERSON

THE GROUP falls silent. Donncha O’Callaghan is in full flow. We haven’t seen nor heard from him for some time, his mischievous grin, his deliberate lack of caution. The secondrow’s style is to declare on issues from which most players would retreat.

And he’ll cheerily take an icon down if he must.

“The lineout is turning into an art form. It’s coming down to a thing you really need to study,” he begins thoughtfully. “We’re lucky with the lineout leaders we have,” he adds. But O’Callaghan’s eyes are lighting up. He is a fly looking for a jar of ointment.

“We’re lucky we have a lunatic like O’Connell who is willing to learn Afrikaans to pick off a few calls and stuff like that,” he trumpets before describing his brush with multiculturalism.

“I called up to his room one time and he had the YouTube on and some woman counting to 10 in Afrikaans. I was like ‘what the f*** is going on here?’ He was getting his ear into hear and to be fair he did pick off an awful lot of their calls. They started calling in a huddle. I remember himself and Victor Matfield chatting about it afterwards. They probably gave us too much credit the year after when they wiped the floor with us in the lineout. It’s good but it’s the way it’s gone, it just shows professional sport, you have to put the work and the hours in off the pitch.”

Back in this week’s team to face Wales with “the lunatic” beside him, O’Callaghan is careful to also hold respect for the players in a teasing balance between their strengths and his sharper iconoclastic tendencies. He isn’t one for pouring over videos. He’s not one for analyst Mervyn Murphy’s laboriously compiled sequences or cramming up on the opposition lineout. Instead he has blind faith and certainty in others.

“No, you need a few chiefs and indians,” he says defiantly in case you accuse him of being part of the study group. “To be fair I’m an indian when it comes to that fellah (O’Connell). He gives me my role and I perform it or else I get my head knocked off.”

A week on and the issue of penalties has not gone away, while vigilant captain Brian O’Driscoll has noticed a little external negativity trying to creep into the camp. But as O’Callaghan inimitably points out those things have been dealt with. He is also pleased to share the far side of Declan Kidney with the room, the fulminating, gesticulating and profane side, while the Irish captain should move from Dublin. To Cork of course.

“That (negativity) is probably due to the high standards that are expected now. I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” says O’Callaghan. “To be fair we can’t play the small Paddies anymore. Those days are gone. We’ve won European Cups. We’ve won Grand Slams, we’ve picked up a few scalps – South Africa, Australia.

“People’s expectations are way higher than they should be and I think that’s not a bad thing. I haven’t really noticed it but people could just try be nicer to Drico, it would be appreciated – wish him good morning because he’s obviously getting a hard time. He should move to Cork. It’s very nice in Cork.”

Just as there is humour in O’Callaghan’s tactical imperatives, so too is there a vein of levity in the Munster man’s world view. Against Wales his job in the secondrow has had to become fine and balanced. Otherwise meltdown. “In our meeting with Deccie (Kidney) in Carton House you wouldn’t want to be on the end of a silly penalty this week . . . you probably know him all as a nice man, really calm and composed but he f****** let fly on Tuesday and you just don’t want to be in there being on the end of something silly.”

What’s silly these days is sometimes ill defined. You feel a wariness seeping into O’Callaghan’s voice as he considers life in the new world of tackle, release, roll away. Cracking the Enigma codes in Bletchley Park was nothing compared to reading the peculiarities of different interpretations. But the referee barking instructions has become a useful barometer. “I actually watched a rugby league match the other night and they know them (players) by first name. It’s like, ‘leave that ball Kevin Sinfield’ and stuff like this.

“To be honest if we had that – I’m not saying it should be the case, but you’re just in no doubt whereas some of the referees are no-warning refs. I’ll be honest with you, I’m 18 stone and I can’t get away on the ground in under two seconds. You need to allow fellas time.”

And you would. All night. But there’s a match to play.