REACTION: OF ALL the comments made amid the immediate high of reaching the promised land, none will have resonated longer with the Blue Army more than Brian O'Driscoll declaring: "I love Leinster." There seems to be a lotta luv in his life these days.
There were possibly times when his amour for ‘les bleus’ was on the wane, not least when he flirted with Biarritz. At times he would have wondered whether he made the right call to stay, and before this Grandest of years, whether his career was ultimately going to be relatively unfulfilled. And the Leinster years were often the rockiest, made slightly more painful by enviously watching his Munster mates doing their thing.
That all the pots and pans have come since he’s turned 30 will only make it sweeter. And the one thing that sustained his loyalty to Leinster was the thought that, however nice it might be to win the Heineken Cup with some aristocratic French team, it would be nothing like doing it with his mates.
“It means absolutely everything,” he said, of a win that clearly gave him as much satisfaction as the Grand Slam.
“This is the one that I always wanted. This is the one (I wanted) at the start of the year. You know, I sat down and spoke with Michael Cheika and said that I wanted this one above all. The Grand Slam, I wasn’t thinking about it, it was an added bonus. But having gone for 10 years at this and been unsuccessful, we only made a couple of semi-finals – and then finally, these are your pals you’re playing with day in, day out.
“It just means so much to win with the likes of Shane Horgan and Malcolm and Girvan and Darce, these guys I’ve played a long, long time with. To feel success with them is brilliant.
“In the same breath, you feel for people like Denis Hickie and Victor Costello and Reggie Corrigan, because they deserved one of these two. We accept the win of this Heineken Cup slightly on their behalf as well.”
O’Driscoll gave a revealing insight into one aspect of the culture change at Leinster compared to some of the divisiveness of the past. “Seven points down, we had our work cut out and I’m sure the vast majority of people thought ‘they’re gone now, it’s going to be a two or three score (win) to Leicester’.
“But I know the resilience of this team. It’s very different, we’ve got a very tight-knit group now. I think we’ve really worked hard at that. I think we enjoy each other’s company, we socialise together, there’s no hierarchy stuff of senior players and younger players.”
Much of the culture shift has to be attributed to Cheika, who has ensured a far greater degree of player self-governance on and off the pitch. His detractors were lurking in the long grass right up to the semis, but the loyalty shown to him by the Leinster branch and the players has been repaid in spades.
“I’m just really delighted for him because he’s stuck by us,” said O’Driscoll. “We got to the semi-finals in his first year, probably beyond expectations of a coach coming in. The third year, last year, was really meant to be our year for getting to the final. Granted, it’s taken another one, but I’m really delighted for him because the guys really believe in him and what he has to coach.
“He’s had a massive impact on us and I’m delighted for all of the players as much as I am for him.”
