Brian O'Driscoll: 'I still hate people thinking of me as a yellow person'

The Magners League begins this weekend, and supporters of the champions, Leinster, can make their way to Cardiff buoyed by the news that their team's erstwhile captain, the still talismanic outside centre Brian O'Driscoll, is fit and raring to go. Or at least, as fit as a man of his advancing years can be in this game. "You're never 100 per cent fit at 29 years of age," says O'Driscoll. "You can be playing with snapped tendons in your finger, as I was for six months, and no one ever knows. People question your passing. I was just happy to catch the ball. But the aim is to get as close as you can to 100 per cent."

He certainly looks fit enough, striding purposefully through the David Lloyd Riverview Health Club in Donnybrook, Dublin, where he and his Leinster team-mates have just been training. He takes me into the team room and apologises for the food on the carpet. "That's where the forwards sit," he says, and smiles. O'Driscoll has the most Irish of smiles, starting with a crinkle of the eyes. It's the smile that, in harness with his prodigious talent, made him Irish sport's poster boy. I ask him whether he's still a pin-up? "Are you mad," he says. "Have you seen Kearns [the smouldering Leinster and Ireland wing Rob Kearney]? He's the ladies' choice now. I'm yesterday's news. Fish and chip paper. I just want to impress from a rugby point of view."

Last season he impressed only in fits and starts, and failed to record a single try for Leinster. For a man famous for touching down (his 32 tries for Ireland is a record), that was a bit of a blow. "Yeah, but the second-last game of the season I was over the line and fell down on it, but as I tried to rotate the ball in my hand it popped out." The eyes crinkle. "If I'd just put that down then I wouldn't be asked in interviews about not scoring a try for Leinster. But so be it, you know. And if I'm not scoring them then I certainly hope I'm setting them up."

In mitigation, O'Driscoll was blighted by injury last season. But there are still those who suggest that even when fit he is not quite the formidable force that he was. More significant is what the man himself thinks. Has his game changed? As he enters his 10th season of international rugby does he see himself, perhaps, as stronger in defence than attack?

"Well, I'm not as quick as I was as a 22-year-old, though I wouldn't say I'm a snail. Obviously my knowledge of the game is greater than it was. I've run such and such a line 70 times in games, so I have a lot of ideas about how I want to break down a defence. Yes, I've changed, but not necessarily for the worse. I certainly try to be a good defender, but it's not just about tackling. You can be a great tackler and a bad defender, so it's about marrying the two. If I thought my defence was poor, that would disappoint me first and foremost. I remember growing up, being smaller than everyone else, and just feeling a little bit fragile. I wouldn't want to use the word yellow but... I wasn't confident in my physical ability to take people on. Then I grew into myself and that wasn't a fear any more. But I still hate the concept of people thinking of me as a yellow person. That has driven me on."

It is time for my eyes to crinkle at the very idea that O'Driscoll might ever be thought cowardly on the rugby field. But clearly his view of himself, and the views others have of him, do not always tally. Especially after a season in which he rarely scaled the majestic heights of seasons past. "I'd be lying if I said there wasn't an element of self-doubt," he says. "You do think 'maybe it's not going to come as easy as it did'. But there comes the work ethic. And that's something I've definitely improved upon. Preparation, training, nutrition, earlier nights. I've had my fun, which is not say that I've done with it, but..."

That fun never really extended to his time in 2001 and 2005 with the British and Irish Lions, and not just because of the infamous spear tackle by Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu that curtailed his tour of New Zealand, as captain, three years ago. The Lions are heading for South Africa next year and O'Driscoll hopes to be a part of it, but not, alas, for the craic.

His uncle, the fine flank-forward John O'Driscoll, played for the Lions against the Springboks back in 1980, and has the anecdotes as well as the scars to show for it. Moreover, on the very afternoon we meet, several of the Welshmen who played on the legendary 1955 Lions tour to South Africa are meeting up in Cardiff to chew over old times. "But we don't have the camaraderie that they appear to have had," says O'Driscoll. "I get on fine with the guys, but I can't say I've made friends for life. I don't think I'm the odd one out. It's just the way the game seems to have gone. Sure, I'd be texting one or two guys on occasion, but not a huge amount more than that."

I mention Jason Robinson, his room-mate on the last Lions tour. "Now there's one of the few guys I would be in contact with. He's a top, top lad. I even remember enjoying him producing the Bible, trying to convince me that was the way to go. Not that he was pushing it on me but believed it so much himself. I can't say I took a huge amount of it on board, though. I'm from a good Catholic family and I went to mass up to my late teens, but I can't say it was ever a hugely enjoyable experience. I do believe there's something in being taught right from wrong. My sister has a couple of young children and she's started going back to mass again, not so much for her but for them." A pause, and a grin. "This is big talk now."

OK, so let's turn from God to BOD, as the Lansdowne Road (or Croke Park) faithful still know him. We've talked about Leinster, and the Lions, what of Ireland, after the disastrous World Cup campaign? Does he intend to retain the captaincy?

"Well, there's no need for a decision now on that front. But everything changes with the new coach coming in. I've spoken to Declan [Kidney], and the only thing he wants from me is exactly what I want from myself, to get back playing well and staying fit. I must admit I was bit apprehensive going down to Cork for the first squad session a month or so ago but it rejuvenated me. I felt as though I was going to start learning things again. Les Kiss as the defensive coach has great ideas, and [forwards coach] Gert Smal... just looking at his play book, he knows his rugby." A crinkle. "He studies his rugby a lot." A bigger crinkle. "He mustn't do anything else."

The World Cup, he admits, was the lowest point of his international career. "Yeah, because expectations were so high, and we never got going." Which can't be said of what I presume would be the greatest highlight of his years in an Ireland shirt, his own dazzling three-try contribution to Ireland's first win in Paris for 28 years, back in 2000?

"Yeah, that was a pretty big day, but people even now say it was one of the best days of their lives." He raises an eyebrow. "Well, whatever you're into yourself."

The last time I interviewed him, I remind him, he was just 22 and embarrassed by comparisons with the great Mike Gibson, his most illustrious predecessor in the centre for Ireland. In fact, he had just declined the chance of doing a Q&A session before a paying audience with Gibson, feeling that his achievements were not yet worthy of the same podium. And now?

"Yeah, I've done stuff with Mike, and occasionally I get a phone call from him. He thinks so much about rugby that it has to have an outlet, and I'm happy to be that outlet. It's not so much advice, as sharing information. I try to do it myself with younger players. As a young guy I always thought experience was overrated. As an older player I think it's very underrated."

None the less, O'Driscoll is not planning to turn that experience to coaching when the time comes to hang up those magic boots. "No, I'd want some time away from the game. Of my pals from home, I've missed five of five weddings, and that's partly their fault because they're all mad getting married at our age, but it's hard. I'm not playing the old violins but people don't see that side. You miss out on stuff that is part and parcel of everyone else's life."

So while everyone else in Dublin wants to be Brian O'Driscoll, he wants to be like everyone else? "Yeah," he says, but I don't really think he'd swap places, not for all the Guinness in Donnybrook.

Brian O'Driscoll is an HSBC ambassador. HSBC is the principal partner to the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa in 2009. For more information go to: www.lionsrugby.com

Magic moments: The O'Driscoll catalogue of defence-mesmerising trickery

19 March 2000, Six Nations, France 25 Ireland 27

All pace and balance, O'Driscoll announces himself as an outside centre of the highest quality by ripping the French back division to shreds. He scores three tries to give Ireland a first win in Paris in more than a quarter of a century.

Watch them here , here and here .

30 June 2001, Lions tour

Australia 13 British Isles 29 The Lions had been toying with the idea of playing O'Driscoll at full-back. Thankfully, they resisted the temptation. Here, at the Gabba in Brisbane, he plays a full part in one of the great Lions performances, scoring a blinding try from his own half.

Watch it here .

1 April 2006, Heineken Cup, Toulouse 35 Leinster 41

Perhaps the most exhilarating match in the history of the Heineken Cup, the Irishmen play Toulouse at their own mesmerising game and run them ragged. O'Driscoll performs brilliantly in open field, and tackles his heart out against the Frenchmen.

Click here to see O'Driscoll's try.

3 May 2008, Magners League, Leinster 41 Newport Gwent Dragons 8

O'Driscoll leads his province to a six-try rout over the Welshmen, thereby ensuring the title goes to Dublin for the second time in seven years. The centre sets up two tries and is denied one of his own by the television match official.

Watch highlights here.

Chris Hewett

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