When Sean O’Brien puffs his cheeks out in amazement, you know you have done well.
TG4 may have caught O’Brien stifling a yawn ahead of Leinster’s Guinness PRO14 clash with Connacht, on Monday, but the flanker was rapt the moment action commenced.
For 85 minutes, it rarely stopped. By the end of the game, Leinster had won but they needed to defend their rumps off to get over the line. Three players topped 25+ tackles and the team landed 208 of them on charging Connacht bodies.
When all was said and done, Josh van der Flier had been credited with 34 of them and, to add to the legend, he had missed 0.
Speaking in The RDS’ media room, at the launch of a Life Style Sport fan competition, O’Brien was in awe of his Leinster and Ireland teammates’ deeds. He declared:
“Yeah, it was phenomenal so it was. When I saw it yesterday, he has a serious engine in fairness to Josh. He works incredibly hard, is a great professional and he puts in big shifts every week he goes out.
“It’s super-human and I don’t think it will be broken for a long time – unless he breaks it himself again.”
A wise prediction, in fairness. Asked for his personal record, O’Brien thinks for a moment then offers up a tally of 23 he had back in 2011.
“That was my highest ever, but nothing near that,” he adds. “You’d do well to get another 10 on top.”
O’Brien had some positive news on the hip injury that has ruled him out of all three inter-provincial games over the festive period. He said:
“It’s coming along. Just a bit of hip stiffness over the last two weeks or so and has been causing me a bit of pain running so trying to get on top of it at the minute. It’s improved in the last four or five days a good bit but not enough be up for selection this week. See how it is the rest of the week and keep working on it.”
The back-row cannot put his finger on when exactly he picked up to strain but admitted it felt “strange” trying to get back up to speed. In fact, full pelt works best for him. It is accelerating that is causing the discomfort.
He may have rushed his comeback in the past but he has learned from past set-backs to give his body ample time to right itself.
“You learn as you get on a little bit that there’s no point in… if it was a final this weekend then, yeah, you could push it up. But with what lies ahead as well you’d be in doubt or probably do something worse to it.
“I’ve taken my time and just made sure it’s right because there are loads of lads at the minute playing really well so there’s no point in me going out there 50% when there are lads that are playing at 100%.”
Leinster’s coaching staff were conscious not to set out a return timeline but O’Brien himself hopes he will be back next week.
*Sean O’Brien was in the RDS to launch Life Style Sports’ latest fan competition. Fans attending the next four home games should keep an eye out for the Life Style Sports stamped seats. If you find yourself in a special seat and are wearing the latest Leinster Rugby jersey, be sure to take s selfie with the stamp tagging @LifeStyleSportsRugby on Instagram to win a €50 gift card.
