241 Pizza

Nine months later, when you ask O’Driscoll for his five best performances, he includes the England game in this season’s RBS Six Nations Championship. Was that final proof that he had got his game back? “No,” he said. “I thought I was up there already.” Indeed, although he employs McNulty’s ideas, he has not got round to giving him that top-five list.

Is he as good as ever, as has been suggested in some quarters? The question is impossible to answer, O’Driscoll said, there was no one time when he was at his best; you would instead have to compose a composite version of the player. He would throw in “the spark I had as a 22-23-year-old”, which he acknowledges has faded; his defence of today; and his ability to read the game he feels has improved in the past two or three years.

Could he score that Lions try against Australia now? “Yup,” he said, unswervingly. “The only thing is I might not have quite that same yard of pace, so Joe Roff might catch me.”

Yet there is a sense that today, in the Heineken Cup, and the next six weeks as a Lions player are a kind of culmination, a last hurrah. He is contracted with Ireland through to the 2011 World Cup. “That’s my goal,” he said. “But I’ll reassess closer to the time.” The Lions? “I can almost guarantee that this is my last Lions.” Thus, “a great opportunity” is how he describes South Africa.

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“You hear someone like Lawrence Dallaglio saying his most special memories were wining the Lions series in ’97, and this is a guy who’s won a World Cup,” O’Driscoll said. “You look as well to Willie John McBride, a great Irish player, but do you think he’s known throughout the world because he played for Ireland? No, it’s because he captained the Lions in a winning series against South Africa.”

Which brings us to the captaincy. In the aforementioned composite best O’Driscoll, he said that his leadership skills now are better than ever. On the captaincy going to Paul O’Connell, though, his stock response remains. “I was a little disappointed, but expectant that Paul was going to get it,” he said. Yet you wonder how the two will rub along.

One recollection O’Driscoll had of 2005, before injury struck, was of the phenomenal support he received from Dallaglio, who became a kind of unappointed vice-captain. But the dynamic with O’Connell may be different he explained. “I’ll talk to Paul,” O’Driscoll said. “You have to assess the situation on a Lions tour because you’re dealing with different people, the best players in each of the countries, a number of leaders, senior players. I’ll lend my support, but I mightn’t be as vocal if he was captain of Ireland.”

He also tells a story that sheds light on the broad compass of his career. Through his recent involvement with a schools rugby programme, HSBC Rugby Festivals, he has been talking to young players and signing countless autographs. And he has found himself looking around for the boy he once was, the shy one who would not step forward. “Rugby helped me come out of my shell,” he said.

That young kid has had ten years at the top of the game and is unrecognisable. “Ten years, sure it makes you feel old,” he said. “But it makes you feel that you’ve done all right.”

In six weeks he could feel he has done considerably better.

Moments to savour

Brian O’Driscoll picks three of his best performances

1 France 25 Ireland 27 (Six Nations Championship, 2001)

“I’d pick that game in my top five, but not because of the tries. I’ve always taken more joy from a try-saving tackle than a try.”

2 Ireland 14 England 13 (Six Nations, 2009)

“That was gratifying, I always felt that I hadn’t played my best in Tests against England.”

3 Australia 13 Lions 29 (first international, 2001)

“My try was a split-second decision. I looked to see who I could get the ball away to, looking for support, and there was Danny Grewcock, and I thought, ‘I’ll back myself.’ Then I just saw a shadow coming chasing in hard. I just got my timing right and I didn’t break stride.”