Expert Analysis: Pope on O'Driscoll

by Brent Pope

You have to go back to the start to appreciate just how incredible the career of Brian O'Driscoll has been. 100 Ireland caps (and six for the Lions); 63 Ireland Tests as captain; 38 international tries for his country.

What is amazing is how he has excelled in different eras and coped with the evolution of the game. The key to that is the way he has never stopped developing.

Like Michael Jordan in basketball, and other truly great sportspeople, O'Driscoll has been able to re-invent himself on several occasions. Aside from his skill levels and talent, that is what really marks him apart from the rest.

For example, we all know now that O'Driscoll is a phenomenal defensive player and that the work he does around rucks and mauls and in the defensive line is incredible. But what is interesting is that he began as a good defensive player rather than a great one. To see that development you have to take a look back at his early career.

I first encountered him when he came into the Leinster A setup at about age 19. At the time, Willie Dawson and I were in charge of that team. Mike Ruddock was the coach of the senior side.

O'Driscoll - constant development is key

We were getting a team ready for a run of interprovincial games and a match against a weak international team and O'Driscoll was actually one of two excellent centres in the squad. The other was a guy called Dermot O'Sullivan.

O'Sullivan was a slightly thicker-set player who could bludgeon teams and O'Driscoll was the prototype modern outside-centre. Together they were a phenomenal attacking combination: they just blew teams apart at that level.

At the time, you could have argued that O'Sullivan and O'Driscoll were equally as good and we actually said to Mike Ruddock that he had to have a serious look at both of them. Kurt McQuilkin and Martin Ridge were the senior pair with Leinster at the time and McQuilkin was nearing the end of his career.

In the end, O'Driscoll ended up playing for Ireland before he played for Leinster. O'Sullivan injured his knee and while he was still involved with the professional game in Leinster and Munster over the next few years, he never quite made it at the top level.

O'Driscoll travelled to Australia with Warren Gatland, started his Ireland Test career, and the rest is history.

Now, in terms of his standing in the game, you can say that there have been good attacking and defensive centres but very few combine both aspects of the game. There are really only two modern centres who can compare: Phillipe Sella and Tana Umaga, who also have that combination of attacking skill, defence and physicality.

From a Southern Hemisphere perspective, I can also say that he Brian O'Driscoll is absolutely huge in New Zealand.

Lions tour to NZ one of few disappointments

Obviously there was disappointment left by the Umaga/Mealamu spear-tackle incident. Most New Zealanders would have had a lot of sympathy for O'Driscoll over that, simply because they wanted to see him play. I know a lot of people in the small country town that I come from felt hurt and disappointed by the whole thing, including some of the media reporting.

But O'Driscoll came back from that. The key to that is his ability to figure out the game. Like Jordan, he can say 'if I can't beat him this way, I'll beat him that way'. He has been able to sit back, take stock and work on the things that will make him a better player at key times in his career.

To me, that is his greatest attribute: he just keeps finding ways to get better.