EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

BRIAN O’DRISCOLL

O’DRISCOLL FACTS

21/01/1979

DATE OF BIRTH:

40 / CLASSIC SPORTS SERIES

LEINSTER

CLUB:

32

85 TRIES:

INTERNATIONAL APPEARANCES:

a huge disappointment for the enormity of it because of the way it finished [a neck injury in the opening minutes of the first Test that put him out of the series] but it has not soured my taste for Lions rugby.”

So are you thinking much about it
at the moment?
“There’s a heck of a lot of rugby to be played before then and as a player you are almost afraid to think too much about it, as so much can happen in that period. You really need to be in form going into the Six Nations and then the final rounds of the Heineken Cup before you are in with a real chance of selection. To me, the Lions tour is the carrot dangling heavily at the end of the season. I have been fortunate enough to play on two tours now. We should have won in Australia in 2001, and then the New Zealand tour for me was over before it started and we lost miserably. The Lions creates such excitement amongst players and fans across all of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales – but first we’ve got the Six Nations when we’ll all be on different sides.” n