Brian O’Driscoll will hope to put Irish World Cup memories to bed
Brian O’Driscoll will finish the Autumn Internationals with a sense of unfinished business as the player enters the twilight of his career.
The mercurial centre will view the remaining fixtures against Samoa, New Zealand and Argentina this November as a way of preparing for the World Cup and relinquishing the memories of the Irish team’s disastrous showing in the last one.
The old guard in the Irish team will know that this will be their last chance to eradicate the horrors inflicted upon them in the 2007 Rugby World Cup and a chance at redemption.
O’Driscoll is one of the few players who performed for Ireland on the big stage, but even he could not save an Irish side that suffered their most embarrassing exit from the competition in their history.
Ireland barely beat Georgia and were knocked out of the pool after losing to Argentina and France.
O’Driscoll has been through his fair share of ups and downs in an illustrious career. The player was born in Clontarf and started his rugby career with the Blackrock schools team.
He went on to win the under-19’s World Championship with Ireland in 1998. After leaving school, the centre received a scholarship to play with University College Dublin. O’Driscoll went on to make his debut for the Ireland under-21’s in February 1999.
In the same year he made his debut for Ireland in a 46-10 defeat against Australia in Brisbane. He made his Leinster debut later in that year
In 2000, O’Driscoll announced himself to world rugby with a hat-trick of tries against France in a shock 25-27 away win in the Six Nations.
The centre was named in the 2001 Lions team that toured in Australia and his performances in the southern hemisphere made him a household name.
The Lion was instrumental in the team’s victory in the first Test and was named as the player of the series, despite Australia winning the Tests 2-1.
In 2003 the player took over the Irish captaincy from Keith Wood who retired and the Irish captain guided his team to Triple Crowns in 2004, 2006 and 2007.
In 2005, O’Driscoll captained the Lions, but was injured in the opening Test match against the All Blacks after he was spear tackled by New Zealand captain Tana Umaga in a controversial incident that appeared to be an illegal tackle. New Zealand went on
to thrash the Lions 3-0 in the series.
In 2007, the centre valiantly tried to save Ireland’s shambolic World Cup campaign. The team were dumped out of the competition in the group stages after they had been tipped as outsiders for the World Cup in France.
However, 2009 was when O’Driscoll achieved his finest moment in his rugby career. Not only did he lead Leinster to Heineken Cup glory; the centre guided Ireland to their first Grand Slam in the Six Nations in 65 years and only Ireland’s second ever Grand
Slam.
The player starred in every game and scored four tries in the tournament, getting the winning try in the deciding match against Wales.
O’Driscoll was called up to his third Lions tour in 2009 and was instrumental in the teams challenge after their disastrous tour of New Zealand in 2005.
The player is still pivotal in the Irish team after playing for over a decade at international level and winning over 100 caps.
His influence will be needed more than ever after their poor start to the Autumn Internationals. The Irish team’s 21-23 loss to South Africa was their fourth defeat in a row.
The Irish captain will hope that he can vanquish the memories of the last World Cup as Ireland’s greatest ever rugby player’s career comes towards its end.
O’Driscoll will hope that he can lead Ireland’s golden generation to a successful World Cup, which would be a fitting final chapter in his career.
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