He's not the first Ireland player to hit the 100 mark but somehow Peter O’Mahony’s hard yards feel harder won than most.
His body of work, both with clubs and country, seems to be made up of hit after hit, collision after collision. Backward steps, there have been few.
The Corkman’s natural instinct, from which he has never detoured, is to meet fire with fire and that he, when he steps out against Scotland this evening, has reached 100 Ireland caps is simply an incredible achievement.
There is a list of Ireland players who shared O’Mahony’s disregard for their own bodies when it came to the rough stuff but never made the ton.
That he has done so says much about the man and the player that Andy Farrell has at his disposal.
The Munster skipper, who made his debut aged 22 as a replacement for Sean O’Brien against Italy in 2012, joins Paul O'Connell, John Hayes, Cian Healy, Rory Best, Brian O'Driscoll, Ronan O'Gara, Johnny Sexton, Conor Murray and Keith Earls in the exclusive club.
Tributes have been pouring in all week from his team-mates, former players, coaches and fans as O’Mahony steps up to the crease on 99.
They all sing the same refrain: warrior, battle-hardened, a driver of standards, relentless, uncompromising. It’s the persona that the public gets to see on a weekly basis.
His nickname is 'The Haggard Badger', we learned from Iain Henderson.
The 34-year-old can come across gruff in interviews but, as Sexton alluded to on Thursday, we don’t know the man.
"Peter has been a great friend of mine over the last 10, 11, 12 years," he said.
"He’s a consistent big-game player. He’s very different to some of the other leaders.
"You don’t get to see the real Peter O’Mahony, he gives very little away in public. But he’s the life and soul of the group behind closed doors. It’s a privilege to play with him."
We get glimpses. He’s a keen gardener, as seen on his Instagram feed. He loves the craic and is self-deprecating.
Speaking at the Rugby Players Ireland awards in May, he referenced a video that went viral in the aftermath of the team’s Grand Slam celebrations.
O’Mahony was seen shepherding the 'Monday Club’ into Garry Ringrose’s parent’s house to continue the merriment.
Discussing pre-big match nerves on stage at the awards he said he sometimes gets nervous but they were nothing compared to waking up on a Tuesday morning with hundreds of unread WhatsApp notifications on your phone.
A born leader, O’Mahony has captained every side he has played for.
He was skipper of the Cork Constitution Under-12s, Presentation Brothers College, Ireland’s underage teams, Munster, Ireland and the Lions.
It’s hard to believe that he started his rugby days at out-half.
Caleb Sheehan, the head coach at PBC at the time and who remains close to O’Mahony, was the man who spotted his pack potential.
"He was playing for Pres Cork Juniors at out-half," explains Paul Barr, who coached a young O’Mahony at the school and with Ireland Schools.
"Even then, he could pass quite well off both hands and could kick pretty well.
"But there was a natural aggression and he was very competitive but almost too physically competitive for that position, he would get himself sidetracked in contact areas.
"So it was a natural move to be made and he first went in to second row and within a couple of months he was playing number 8.
"He was a natural in the back row, won a senior cup with Pres, beating Christian Brothers in the final."
O’Mahony’s drive and leadership stood out in his early days, says Barr.
On his own initiative, aged 15, he gathered his team-mates for lineout practice in Cork Con well in advance of a Bowen Shield campaign.
Later, when captain of the seniors, the squad welcomed Niall Scannell in for a training session.
Now a Munster and Ireland hooker, Scannell had just led his side to the Junior title but incurred the wrath of the older boy.
"The first lineout throw came in around chest high to Peter and he batted it down the gym with a closed fist," recalls Barr.
"He turned and looked at Niall and said, ‘I don’t catch that kind of rubbish.’
"The ball was a metre too low. That response said to Niall, ‘I’m setting you a standard on day one.’
"His leadership was there early, he drives hard but players accept that.
"He was emotional, passionate and drove a standard."
An All-Ireland League winner with Cork Con in 2010, O’Mahony signed a senior contract with Munster ahead of the 2010/11 season.
His first start in a red shirt came in a famous 2010 win over Australia and was captaining the team by the start of the next season.
He has since racked up 177 appearances for his province, crowned with a United Rugby Championship title win last season.
Along with team-mate Earls, it’s difficult to pick out any other Irish player who deserved a club medal more. Speaking to media in Paris this week he was sure to mention the impact of Anthony ‘Axel’ Foley, his coach at Munster, who passed away in the city in 2016.
"Axel is always somebody who is certainly in my head on a very regular basis and when you come to Paris he certainly comes to mind," he said.
"I've the fondest memories that we had together and the amount of inspiration he gave, not just to me, but to lots of young kids in Munster and Ireland."
It wasn’t long before he got the call-up to the senior Ireland side, then under Declan Kidney.
"He was just a young kid from Munster, who had all this potential," remembers Stephen Ferris, who was on the field when O’Mahony ran on for his debut, the 2012 Six Nations win over Italy at the Aviva Stadium.
"He was being talked about as a hardy back row player."
He soon established himself as a regular and, when fit, put together a run of 30 starts between the summer of 2012 and the autumn of 2016, a spell that covered two Six Nations titles and a serious knee injury suffered in the World Cup win over France in 2015.
But Joe Schmidt had back-row options aplenty and O’Mahony found himself down the pecking order with Jamie Heaslip, CJ Stander, Sean O’Brien and Josh van der Flier preferred.
However, a late call-up before the 2017 slam-buster against England shot O’Mahony to the front of the queue once more.
He delivered a man-of-the-match performance as Ireland ended England’s 18-match winning run in Dublin.
A Lions call-up came as no surprise but heads turned when Warren Gatland named him as captain for the opening Test against New Zealand.
However, he lost his place when Sam Warburton returned to full fitness. The Lions went on to draw the series.
Barr has a theory on that.
"He came to a lot of breakdowns where his instinct, with Munster and Ireland, was to contest," he says.
"But he folded around the corner and became a defender. That was a Lions tactic to keep players on their feet and not contest breakdowns initially.
"So Peter went against his instincts and I thought there were two or three possible turnovers that he naturally would have gone for but he didn’t and then he got dropped.
"I think if he had made those turnovers he would have been harder to drop. He suffered for it."
But O’Mahony was used to dealing with set-backs. A red card against Wales in 2020 saw him sit out three games through suspension.
He started all of the games in the victorious 2018 Six Nations campaign and featured in each of the five matches of last season’s Grand Slam, starting four.
O’Mahony, whose two tries against Romania last month brought his try tally to five in green, brings more to the contest than what one might expect of a man standing 6ft 2in and just over 17st, not big by modern back row standards.
"He has developed an aura through his toughness but that’s to do with how he can affect the next play: 'how can I wreck your head, how can I put you off your game?'," says Barr.
"As a younger boy he was emotional when he played and could give up if things didn’t go his way. As he matured he became a really focused competitor.
"When he gets injured, a lot of the time, I think it’s not physical.
"He plays so hard, and he isn’t the biggest player out there, so I think sometimes when you see him taking a break, he goes down on one knee and takes a minute.
"I actually think he’s got a belt or a knock and thinks ‘that’s okay’ and he recalibrates himself to the maximum level."
Farrell has a bounty of back rowers to pick from but there is also the sense that O’Mahony is the last of a dying breed.
A few years ago Brian O’Driscoll lamented the lack of dog in the Irish pack. He didn’t have O’Mahony in mind.
"That dog, the great players who had it, they were intelligent dogs, they weren’t getting themselves sent off a lot, or yellow-carded," says Barr.
"It was focused aggression, controlled. Peter has brought that to Ireland.
"It unsettles opposition as well.
"Our teams are better when we have that in us. I’ve seen that over a long period and I see it as strategic, he’s completely aware of its use."
When Farrell took over in 2020 Ireland needed a recalibration. Pushing 31, and with miles on the clock, it might have been easier to ease O’Mahony into a supporting role.
But Farrell recognised what he brought as saw him as a vital piece of the jigsaw.
"We could sit here all day and talk about what he brings and means to us all, what type of bloke he is, the family man he is," he said after naming him in the team for tonight’s clash in Paris.
"He’s selfless. You guys see his performances on the pitch and what it means for him to play for Ireland but behind the scenes, he is definitely, 100%, the best I have ever seen at making the dressing room feel right.
"It is him being himself because he’s genuine. There’s no better man you’d want sat alongside you than Peter O’Mahony."
For all the medals he has, and whatever is to come in the future O’Mahony will be remembered for standing up in the big moments."
He was there when Ireland beat New Zealand for the first time at home in 2018, and was seen in tears as the tourists recorded a rare series win away to the All Blacks last year.
"For me the contributions he made in the really big Test matches for Ireland over the years stand out, away in New Zealand, in the Aviva against New Zealand in 2018, games against France, he’s been a force of nature," says Barr.
"You’d be so proud of him coming through a structure you’ve been involved in.
"More importantly, I actually think some of the Ireland players grow through his presence on the pitch.
"In those toughest games, the biggest moments, when he’s won poaches, forced errors, stolen lineouts.
"Cometh the hour, cometh the man and that’s Peter O’Mahony."
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