Joe Schmidt gave Sean O’Brien a nice birthday present last night – 80 minutes against France
The plan, with O’Brien just back after a long injury lay-off, would have been to send Jordi Murphy in his place but a Pascal Papé knee to Jamie Heaslip’s lower back nixed that. Heaslip hobbled out of the fray on the hour mark and O’Brien, who turned 28 on Saturday, was forced to see out the 18-11 win.
‘I was blowing,’ O’Brien admits. ‘I was sucking air there at one point but it was good to get the amount of minutes I did… The legs felt good. I’ve been doing a lot of work over the last few weeks and that has stood for me.
‘It was tough. There were a lot of big hits, you know, close in that people may not have seen. It was a very physical game and there will be sore bodies tomorrow on this side, and their side. We expected that off the French. There are some very, very big players and they really got stuck into us in the second half.’
O’Brien adds, ‘It was brilliant to get back out there. The crowd were brilliant as well. That was one of the reasons I wanted to get back – to get out in that atmosphere. They played their part too and we’re very, very happy with the result.’
The Tullow Tank concedes Ireland missed a couple of gilt-edged scoring chances but was pleased that his teammates kept their calm, and remembered their roles, in the closing stages. The last Test match O’Brien played saw the All Blacks come back to steal victory at the death.
On the closing stages, with France pressing hard for a late try, he recalls, ‘You’re just getting up and trying to find a blue shirt. Just working and working. That’s what it’s all about. It’s about getting on the line. You’re running on adrenaline at that stage – a minute or two to go. We’ve seen before, in the past, when we’ve got caught so it’s very important to stick to the system and trust each other.’
Still, the flanker sees room for improvement. He said:
‘We wanted to go for it [in the final 20] but I don’t think our discipline was good enough today. I’m not sure of the penalty count but I thought it was over 10 [it was 11]. That’s probably not good enough for the next day [against England]. That put us under pressure a bit, our own discipline, so we couldn’t really go after them. We definitely did want to go after them and play rugby. It was a very stop-start, slow game. I don’t think it was a good game to watch but the result was there at the end for us.’
O’Brien denies the March 1 date with England will decide the Six Nations but notes Stuart Lancaster’s men are in top form. ‘They had a big win [against Italy] and we know all about them from last year and what they bring to the table. We’ll have a look, and will start planning, for England this week,’ he says.
‘It’s not a case of revenge. If you go out looking for revenge, you’ll get bit on the arse. It’s a case of being composed, measured and making sure we have all our detail in place, and that we’re singing off the same hymn-sheet.’
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