British & Irish Lions
• What did the South Africans ever do for us?
O’Driscoll Keeps the Faith!
Commenting on the Genesis Report, Brian O’Driscoll said:
“I have 100 per cent faith in the system that Eddie puts together and, if this report has brought a few things to light that maybe he didn’t know about, well, that has to be a good thing. You [the coach] are not always going to hear everything from your players and that’s when something like this can help you along.
“You always need to change things. I don’t think that even if we were successful in the World Cup you could remain stagnant and England are the prime example of that for the four years after they won the World Cup in 2003. You can’t sit on your laurels because you tend to take steps backwards if you don’t change.”
O’Driscoll also commented on the finding about lack of high intensity games in pre-tournament matches:
“I didn’t play during the summer and I can only talk from my own point of view. I really only hit any sort of decent form after four or five games of the season and maybe I was forcing the issue a little bit because I only played the [warm-up] international against Scotland then three quarters of a game against a French club side and then I was out for four weeks with injury,” said O’Driscoll.
“So, from my point of view, if the case came that we were to play in another World Cup, I’d certainly put forward the idea that we’d risk some of the key players picking up knocks in the build-up in favour of not playing enough games because I think it has been an issue.”
When asked to comment on the appointment of a support role for the National coach – a person with international rugby experience – O’Driscoll said:
“I always enjoyed the time that Brian O’Brien was manager I got on very well with him. He was someone that would always listen to problems and, even from Eddie’s point of view, someone that he spent quite a lot of time with.
“I don’t mean to be throwing a spanner into the works by mentioning him [O'Brien], I just mean I liked his sort of personality, he’s a very likeable sort and I hit it off with him.”