Sean O’Brien feels last Saturday’s barnstormer against the All Blacks was only the beginning.
The Leinster flanker insists he was preparing to play the full 80 minutes against New Zealand anyway but that decision was taken out of his hands when CJ Stander went off concussed with an hour left to play. The most remarkable part of O’Brien’s wire-to-wire performance is that he seemed to get better as the game went on,
Still, he ended up on the losing side. Still.
O’Brien joined Joe Schmidt for the Ireland team announcement at Carton House, this afternoon, and spoke like a man with some serious business to take care of.
“I didn’t have to do much,” he said. “The prep was done during the week. I had prepared myself to play a full game. I was very happy to do that and glad I did.”
Asked if he was close to his best, Schmidt came to closest he was every likely to, today, of a smile. He replied:
“I think I’m a little bit off still. I think I’ve a lot of improvement in myself in different areas. That’s why I’m looking forward to this week, to build again on last week and see where we go from here.”
The next team up are an Australian side ranked third in the world and on the back of a three-match winning spin. It was only when O’Brien started dropping surnames did we realise how tough a game this is going to be. He said:
“We’re obviously expecting a very physical game, I think they’ve major threats all over the field. They have world-class players, such as Pocock, Hooper, Folau, Genia, people who love to be on the ball and over the ball in terms of the back-row they have.
“So they’ve a very good set-piece, they want to play fast and get over the gainline, so an exciting challenge for us, but a very dangerous side.”
That they are but O’Brien is only warming up.
Dick Clerkin makes his GAA Hour debut to talk about a wonderful career and argue passionately with Colm Parkinson over Sky Sports GAA. Subscribe here on iTunes.
