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Donncha O’Callaghan reveals:

“The silly ones will always annoy you and I think anyone who was in our meeting with Deccie in Carton House wouldn’t want to be on the end of a silly penalty this week,”

“Because, to be fair, you probably know him all as a nice man and really calm and composed, but he f*****g let fly on Tuesday and you just don’t want to be in there, following the review of that game, being on the end of something silly.”

The camp has made lots of noise about refereeing reviews and calls from the captain to drop re-offending players, but it seems Kidney is determined to draw a line under the issue.

Lets hope it improves against Wales to prevent further annoyance to the coach!

Geordan Murphy makes a welcome return after returning from injury and Jonathan Sextion will start at outhalf.

John Hayes wins his 100th cap as part of a front row that contains Rory Best in replacement for Jerry Flannery. Donncha O’Callaghan makes a welcome return alongside Paul O’Connell.

Ireland Team & Replacements (v England, RBS 6 Nations Championship, Twickenham, February 27th, 16:00)

15 – Geordan Murphy (Leicester)
14 – Tommy Bowe (Ospreys)
13 – Brian O’Driscoll (UCD/Leinster) (capt)
12 – Gordon D’Arcy (Lansdowne/Leinster)
11 – Keith Earls (Young Munster/Munster)
10 – Jonathan Sexton (St. Mary’s College/Leinster)
9 – Tomas O’Leary (Dolphin/Munster)
1 – Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster)
2 – Rory Best (Banbridge/Ulster)
3 – John Hayes (Bruff/Munster)
4 – Donncha O’Callaghan (Cork Constitution/Munster)
5 – Paul O’Connell (Young Munster/Munster)
6 – Stephen Ferris (Dungannon/Ulster)
7 – David Wallace (Garryowen/Munster)
8 – Jamie Heaslip (Naas/Leinster)

Replacements:
16 – Sean Cronin (Buccaneers/Connacht)
17 – Tony Buckley (Shannon/Munster)
18 – Leo Cullen (Blackrock College/Leinster)
19 – Shane Jennings (St.Mary’s College/Leinster)
20 – Eoin Reddan (Lansdowne/Leinster)
21 – Ronan O’Gara (Cork Constitution/Munster)
22 – Andrew Trimble (Ballymena/Ulster)

With a winter wonderland surrounding them, vast amounts of salt was scattered around the entrance to St Columba’s Chuch to avoid any injury to the pride of Irish rugby in attendance.

Almost all of the Ireland, Munster and Leinster players were there, along with some international stars such as Dougie Howlett (All Blacks), Lifeimi Mafi (Tonga) and Tigers captain Geordan Murphy. The bride’s cousin had a dual role on the day as well as being family he is Donncha’s captain at international level – yes none other than Brian O’Driscoll!

Rugby fans gathered at the church to congratulate the happy couple, with a handful eager to gather autographs from the assembled galaxy of stars.

Our pictures show Donncha looking a little less clean cut during the famous victory that capped their first grand slam in 60 years!

“We were in training with Munster and for some reason, before we were going in for a team meeting, we were feeding these ducks with cornflakes,” he said. “Well, they then started following us so, just for a laugh, with a few bags of Kelloggs I enticed them into the team room and hid them behind the curtain. When the coach started talking, he couldn’t understand where the noise was coming from and we all fell about. It backfired, though. They shat everywhere and one of the coaches grabbed me by the ear and said, ‘You’re cleaning that up, boy.’ It took me all afternoon.”

He tells this story completely deadpan, you get the feeling he’s told it a “few” times before!

But what about the time when he bought a lobster on holiday, put it on a leash and walked it down the promenade? Or when, on the Lions tour, he pulled down Alastair Campbell’s trousers? Or when, he attempted to contest a line-out in only a pair of red, silk underpants? “That’s [Geordan] Murphy putting that around, the pet lobster thing, and that’s what I’m on about,” he said. “Because it’s me, if any story gets bandied around everybody tells everyone and everyone believes it. Now, if someone like Geordan does something a bit strange – which believe me he does, often – it all stays quiet. It’s like how I get attributed with pulling Alastair’s tracksuit bottom down in that press conference. That was actually Paulie [O'Connell] and anyway it was a good-natured thing as we both really got on with Alastair and have stayed in touch. But the ‘undies’ thing, that was different. I’m very embarrassed about that.”

The last mentioned was the most recent and most talked about of all O’Callaghan’s antics. Two months on from Munster’s European Cup group victory in Cardiff, it is still one of the best-watched sports clips on YouTube (mistakenly it is filed under “Donnacha”, although that is the way his name is pronounced) having been viewed nigh on 100,000 times. The segment shows the supposed Munster funster having an argument with the referee, who is insisting that he goes off the pitch and puts on a pair of shorts to cover up briefs that leave little to the imagination.

“It wasn’t a lark or anything as it was a bloody important point in a bloody important match,” insists O’Callaghan. “In a ruck, my shorts got ripped off and the bench didn’t have any immediately on hand for me to put on. If I’d waited, I feared the referee would have played on without me and that’s why I ran on in my undies. That’s also why I refused to leave the field as I thought we’d then be one down. I remember Paulie once losing both front teeth in a match and carrying on in the next line-out, so I thought, if he can do it without teeth, I can sure as hell do it without shorts. As it was, the ref stopped the game while I changed ‘em. But I wish it had never happened and it hadn’t been shown everywhere. It’s not the image I want to project, not because I’m shy, but because I’m a serious professional.”

Since deposing Ireland’s most-capped player, Malcolm O’Kelly, as the first-choice pal in the engine room, the O’Connell and O’Callaghan partnership has gone from strength to strength, although at the Millennium Stadium last Sunday their magnificence was crudely held up for scepticism. For his part, O’Callaghan believes their performance was “solid enough”, but acknowledges, “we’ll have to raise it a right few notches against France – especially on this of all days”.

“Because although, like Paulie says, this is just 15 against 15 and a rugby match on a rugby pitch, it’s obviously going to be special being at Croke Park,” he said, welcoming the Gaelic Athletic Association’s decision to throw open the doors of its temple to amateurism for the first time in 123 years. “I can’t say how much it means coming from Cork and having a background in GAA to be playing at Croker. I was OK at [Gaelic] football but had no real skill and they used me simply as a big arse to get in the way. I quite fancied hurling but ,when they asked who wanted to play in school, I stuck my hand up and they asked, ‘Are you an O’Callaghan?’ I replied ‘yes’ and they said, ‘Sorry, we’re not giving any O’Callaghan a big stick.’ My brothers’ reputation tended to precede me a bit.”

They cannot stop him from swinging his stuff this Sunday, though, just as nobody was going to stand in the squad’s way when they took a run-out at Croke Park last week.

“There were a few [Gaelic] soccer balls around and we couldn’t resist seeing who could score the first goal and all that,” he said. “But that’s out of our system now and this weekend is all about rugby and nothing else. You know, Croker’s that much bigger than the Millennium and so will the noise be. France are going to find it very loud and very intense.”

So no ducks, lobsters, tight underpants or pranks of any description then? “It wouldn’t be the time and definitely not the place,” he replies with a wink. Donncha laughs. He will always find it hard not to.

None of them dress the same (other than on match days), you couldn’t find a more different bunch (even in most of the pubs in Ireland!) but throw an oval shaped ball at them and the Irish magic might just begin, the green machine drives into action!

Fortunately, they’ve spent a lot of time together since the year 2000, now seven years (and two managers) on they have a few advantages to count on as well: O’Driscoll, Munster’s status and what is rapidly being labelled as the Croke Park effect. “When you’re playing with friends it helps a lot,” says Munster’s coach, Declan Kidney. “When you spend a lot of time together, some things become intuitive. There’s a group of Irish players who know each other well, have grown up together in the international arena and play well for one another.”

The Munster pack and half-backs and the Leinster backs – playing week in, week out together has to cause some “group thinking”. But they are all still so different!

• Peter Stringer is “married to his computers”.
• Ronan O’Gara will more than likely be out practising his goalkicking.
• If Donncha O’Callaghan is left sitting in a hotel for four hours he is more than likely to attempt a practical joke. (he once smuggled some ducks into a Munster team meeting; as a young man on holiday he bought a pet lobster and took it for walks down the road).
• O’Driscoll, as captain and national pin-up, is normally keener to get home and shut out the limelight.
• D’Arcy is more than happy to hang out in a friendly coffee shop – he travelled to India last year with the aid agency GOAL, “I was particularly affected by the red light district in Kolkota. As we approached we saw probably 200 girls lined up on either side of a narrow little street, a 400-strong guard of honour of prostitutes. Some of them couldn’t have been 14 years old, as young as my little sister. Girls that age should be enjoying being a kid … of all the things we saw that left the biggest imprint on me.”

Some team members have built up relationships all of their own.
Remember Inspector Clouseau’s man servant (and martial arts expert), Cato? It might as well be Murphy and Horgan, “I’ve roomed on and off with Shaggy over the last couple of years,” says Murphy. “Our relationship is based on me trying to frighten the life out of him. It started on an away trip when I saw him walking down a corridor talking on his phone. I hid in a doorway and grabbed him as he passed. He screamed this unbelievably high-pitched scream, just like a girl. We’ve all grown up a little since then but it’s still fun to scare him occasionally.”

Mostly, though, Irish eyes are gleaming. “Any coach in the world would enjoy having the players they have in that backline,” said England’s coach, Brian Ashton. Wood is apprehensive for other reasons. “Winning all your matches is bloody hard and it rarely happens.” But Munster conquered Europe last season through collective will and Ireland crave a grand slam just as badly.

Take a look at how long some of these playes have been in the squad!

Jan 2000

Hayes, Sheahan, O’Kelly; Dempsey, B O’Driscoll, O’Gara, Stringer.

Jan 2001

Hayes, Sheehan, O’Kelly, D Wallace; Dempsey, Murphy, B O’Driscoll, O’Gara, Stringer.

Jan 2002

Easterby, Hayes, Horan, O’Kelly, O’Connell, Sheahan, Wallace; Dempsey, D’Arcy, Hickie, Murphy, B O’Driscoll, O’Gara, Stringer, P Wallace.

Mar 2003

Hayes, Horan, O’Kelly, Sheahan; Dempsey, Hickie, Murphy, B O’Driscoll, O’Gara, Stringer.

Jan 2004

S Best, Easterby, Hayes, Horan, O’Callaghan, O’Connell, O’ Kelly, Sheahan, D Wallace; D’Arcy, Dempsey, B O’Driscoll, O’Gara, Stringer.

Jan 2005

S Best, Easterby, Hayes, Horan, Leamy, O’Callaghan, O’Connell, O’Kelly, Sheahan; D’Arcy, Dempsey, Hickie, Murphy, B O’Driscoll, O’Gara, Stringer.

Jan 2006

R Best, S Best, Easterby, Flannery, Hayes, Horan, Leamy, O’Callaghan, O’Connell, O’Kelly, D Wallace; D’Arcy, Murphy, B O’Driscoll, O’Gara, Stringer, Trimble.

Jan 2007

Forwards Neil Best, Rory Best, Simon Best, Simon Easterby, Jerry Flannery, John Hayes, Marcus Horan, Denis Leamy, Donncha O’Callaghan, Paul O’Connell, Mick O’Driscoll, Malcolm O’Kelly, Frankie Sheahan, David Wallace. Backs Isaac Boss, Girvan Dempsey, Gordon D’Arcy, Denis Hickie, Geordan Murphy, Brian O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara, Peter Stringer, Andrew Trimble, Paddy Wallace.