Читать книгу Brian O'driscoll - Marcus Stead - Страница 10

As captain, he was eager to set an example to the rest of the squad so he threw out all the junk food he had in his kitchen and stocked up on fresh fruit and veg, as well as chicken and fish cutlets. He knew that it would be boring rabbit food all the way for the next few months, with very few beers and heavy nights out with the lads. He owed it to himself and the team to be in the peak of physical fitness and to prepare properly for the tour.

Brian began the week well and stuck rigidly to his new regime. But his plans were interrupted on the Wednesday when it was announced that Declan Kidney had resigned as Leinster coach and was taking over at arch rivals Munster. Declan cited family reasons for the move, but his side’s thrashing the previous weekend made his position at Leinster less secure. Brian had heard a rumour the previous week that Declan had applied for the vacancy at Munster and was sure he’d take it if offered.

It’s fair to say that Brian’s relationship with Declan had never been particularly close or easy. They first worked together when Brian played in the side that won the under-19 World Cup in France in 1998. At the time, they worked well together, with Declan teaching Brian never to go out on to the pitch feeling inferior to his opponent – a lesson he has never forgotten. That was probably the high point in their relationship, and at Leinster things had never been as good between them.

The previous week, Declan had wanted to talk to Brian about the way ahead for the rest of the season. Knowing something was up, Brian cut him short, telling him it was a pointless exercise because he knew full well he wasn’t going to be there. Mentally, Declan had not made the break from Leinster and even offered to stay there for the remainder of the season, but that was never going to be an option.

Some of the other members of the squad were certainly not sorry to see him go. He had just finished a round of contract negotiations and told several prominent members of the team their contracts were not being renewed, and Brian tended to side with the players over Declan over this.

Brian could not hide his frustration with the way things had developed at Leinster under Declan’s tenure – he did not believe his overall game had progressed as he would have liked.

He knew what he would like to see in Declan’s successor at Leinster – a technically brilliant coach who had new ideas and innovations he wanted to put in place. He also knew that such coaches wouldn’t come cheap and that he had to detach himself from the mess at Leinster because of his commitments with the Lions.

It was now less than a week until Brian would be unveiled as Lions captain at the big press conference in London. Brian spent the weekend doing some quiet sightseeing with Glenda in London. Clive phoned Brian and told him the make-up of the final squad. Brian was delighted with Clive’s choice; every 50-50 decision had gone the way he’d hoped and he was comforted to know that he and Clive thought alike on matters of team selection.

They both knew the importance of persevering with Jonny Wilkinson, allowing him extra time to recover from his injury. The Kiwis would have loved them to announce this early on that Jonny was injured and wouldn’t be on the plane, so they agreed it would be better to do exactly what the Kiwis didn’t want them to do. The same went for Mike Tindall and Phil Vickery, both of whom were extremely doubtful but would keep the opposition guessing until the very last minute.

Brian checked into the Hilton Hotel in Heathrow under the name Marcus Jansa, who was presumably friends with Brendan O’Donovan and Graham Delaney. He spent the night before the big day watching Tiger Woods winning the US Masters golf after a nail-biting play-off.

On the day itself, he was not allowed out of his room until midday to keep the growing press entourage guessing for as long as possible. He was then smuggled via the service lift to the press-conference room where he was kept waiting behind the curtain before being unveiled.

Clive had not really prepared Brian for the occasion. There was to be no autocue or script. He wanted it to come from the heart. Brian had to overcome his shyness because the truth was that once in New Zealand there would be press conferences most days and he simply had to get used to this intense level of media interest.

Brian played it safe at the press conference. He knew that every word he said was being taken down by a large number of journalists and that there were many thousands of people listening live on television. This was not a time for any of his lame attempts at humour.

Instead, he just went through the motions, saying what an honour it was, how moved and emotional it was to be selected as captain, and how hard it had been not telling anyone other than his parents about it those past few weeks.

Inevitably, the journalists were more interested in the apparent absence of Jonny than in Brian being named captain, and this press conference proved relatively easy for him. The only question that really came his way was when he was asked about his memories of previous Lions tours. Aside from the tour of four years previously, his memories were virtually nil and, when asked what he remembered from the previous Lions tour to New Zealand in 1993, all he could say was, ‘I was much more interested in Mark Hughes and Manchester United in those days’.

After the press conference was over, they split up for one-on-one interviews that gave Brian the chance to say all the things that had been playing on his mind over the last few weeks.

At mid-afternoon, Brian took a flight back to Dublin and organised what he intended to be a small gathering for close family and friends. This soon erupted into a wild party with at least 40 people turning up at his house, which included no fewer than six members of the Leinster squad who had been selected for the tour.

Denis Hickie, Shane Horgan and Gordon D’Arcy had been on edge for at least a week. They knew they were borderline selections and the build-up to this day had been a nervous one for them. Brian had known for several days that their seat on the plane was secure but he was sworn to secrecy and had to watch them suffer, unable to say a word.

Shane Byrne and Malcolm O’Kelly would be joining them, as would Ronan O’Gara, a controversial selection but one Brian was very keen on, believing him to be the best fly-half available. Yes, there had been the occasional very bad performance with the boot, but he had generally been in good form over the previous four years, though he would face stiff competition from Stephen Jones to make the first XV.

The night started with some serious talk about how Brian saw the tour progressing, but before long they had all had plenty to drink and the lads, continuing the celebrations, headed to Flannery’s pub – a haunt often frequented by nurses who had just come off shift. After that, they went on to a club and let themselves go before a daily disciplined routine had to set in.

The following weekend, Brian was spurred on by the news that Jonny had played a successful 50 minutes for Newcastle on the Friday night and was looking good for the tour. Brian played in Leinster’s Celtic League win over Glasgow, although he was disappointed with the way his team fell away in the second half and blamed himself for not fully concentrating. However, considering all the upheaval at Leinster, it wasn’t a bad performance by the boys.

On the Sunday, Brian travelled to the Vale of Glamorgan hotel near Cardiff for a two-day Lions get-together, exactly a month before they were due to fly to New Zealand. Waiting for Brian at the hotel was a large brown parcel. He opened it to find a Blackburn Rovers shirt signed by Mark Hughes, who had heard Brian’s reference to him at the press conference and took the opportunity to write Brian a personal note wishing him all the best for the tour. ‘Sparky’ was Brian’s all-time sporting hero and he felt greatly touched by this gesture; the shirt now takes pride of place on Brian’s wall at home.

The purpose of this exercise was just to spend a bit of time together as a squad. They had been used to knocking lumps out of each other for the past four years, now they were on the same side and had to get to know each other as rugby players and as people.

In the evening, Brian and a few others had a great laugh filming the tour trailer for Sky. Brian spent half an hour roaring like a lion in front of the cameras, but couldn’t help falling about laughing every time he tried to look remotely menacing. The finished article saw their heads turned into those of lions, thanks to some help from computer animation, and certainly made for an impressive advert.

Training wasn’t a massive priority during this gathering, though Brian did put in several weight sessions, but gave his legs a well-earned rest. The most important aspect of this gathering was the briefing given by Clive and tour manager Bill Beaumont, which included a lot of emotive language about the Lions.

Representatives from each of the four nations, Martin Corry, Gordon Bulloch, Gareth Thomas and Paul O’Connell, were asked to explain what the Lions tour meant to them. Then it was Brian’s turn to give his speech. For once, he knew exactly what he wanted to say and there was a very important message he wanted to convey to his players.

He pointed out that the only previous Lions tours people really remembered were the tours of 1971, 1974 and 1997, which were all winning tours for the Lions. Hardly anyone mentioned the 2001 tour, and that was only four years ago. Other tours such as those in 1993, 1983 and 1977 are almost entirely forgotten, because the Lions were defeated. Brian made it clear to the squad that it was up to them to make this tour one people would be taking about in fifty and hundred years’ time.

Brian also made it clear that, after a night’s celebrating on the day of the squad selection, he had knuckled down to training like never before in his life. He was leading by example, and expected every single member of the squad to follow suit.

Brian then talked about what he and Clive had discussed in Henley at the start of the year. This tour had to be fun. They would be together as a squad for seven weeks. This would be the only time in their lives they would play together as a squad, and it was important they had fun and enjoyed each other’s company.

He told them to enjoy New Zealand, a country like Ireland in many respects with its relaxed pace of life, village feel and warm welcome. He pointed out that the New Zealand players were far more humble and friendly than their Southern Hemisphere counterparts. Warriors on the pitch, but gentlemen off it. The New Zealand public were rugby-mad and would give the players a warm welcome if they walked into a hotel or a bar, and the players should enjoy mixing with the ordinary people. There were also to be some old-fashioned school and hospital visits, something that hadn’t happened too often in recent years.

Brian got his message across well. It would be a tough tour rugby-wise, but ultimately playing for the Lions is the pinnacle of any player’s career and it was an experience to cherish and enjoy, especially in such a beautiful country as New Zealand.

There were a number of other ‘getting to know you’ exercises during the get-together, which included one member of the squad interviewing another in depth. Brian got paired off with Welshman Shane Williams, who he didn’t know all that well, and it proved to be an interesting exercise. Brian learned that Shane wasn’t some wonder-kid and had been something of a late developer. This meant he had to work hard for everything he had earned in the game.

This was music to Brian’s ears. He knew instantly that Shane was a grafter and was exactly what was needed for the battle that lay ahead. Brian knew from the interview that if Shane was feeling a bit down on tour he responded better to the carrot than the stick. He also discovered that Shane was mad on motorbikes and that was his main interest outside rugby.

Then the roles were reversed and it was Shane’s turn to interview Brian. Shane asked whether Brian had any embarrassing moments and if he had any regrets. Brian had one good story that answered both of those questions.

A few years earlier, Brian had done some advertisements for men’s pants that resulted in some horrendous posters of him posing in his underwear. They were unflattering to say the least and Brian had kept a low profile for some months afterwards.

Later on, Clive and the rest of the management team quit the room and left the players on their own to come up with their own Code of Conduct and outline their tour objectives. Brian allowed Lawrence Dallaglio, a veteran of the successful ’97 tour, to head the discussion.Obviously, there would be disappointed individuals who would not be selected for the Test side and they had to agree now the best way to deal with this. They also discussed the best way to support players who were having a bad day at the office.

At the end of the meeting, Lawrence came over to Brian and gave his take on the matter. As a veteran of two Lions tours, and the holder of a World Cup winners’ medal, Brian took what he said very seriously.

Lawrence made it clear to Brian that there could be no bad days at the office on this tour. These matches were among the most important any of them would ever play and they had to give 100 per cent all the time. This was the philosophy they had to live by and this was the message they had to get across to the rest of the squad. It was as simple as that.

Clive returned to the room after an hour and the squad presented their findings to him. He agreed to give them every important thing they wanted. The tour charter was agreed and it would be printed into a booklet and given to each player the following month.

There were some amusing team-building exercises during the get-together that, on the surface, look silly but which Brian actually found a very effective way of getting to know members of the squad better and understand how they work as a team. Firstly, there was a mosaic exercise with a Lions theme which saw all the national flags and emblems split into 100 squares. Each team had to paint a few of those squares, which meant co-ordinating with the teams in charge of the squares bordering yours. It was a good laugh and they looked like primary-school children at the end, covered from head to toe in paint, but it achieved an important objective.

There was more fun after the team dinner when the squad was split into nine teams and each team was expected to perform cabaret. This kind of extrovert behaviour really didn’t come easily to Brian and he just had to make the best of it. Ben Kay’s celebrity impersonations were undoubtedly the highlight of the cabaret exercise, with a small number of others just about managing not to make complete idiots of themselves.

But again, there was a far more serious wider purpose to the task. A squad of players, who didn’t really know each other that well beforehand, had come together and learned a bit about each other and learned to work together as a team. Of course, there is no substitute for training and playing together, so Brian was delighted when a pre-tour game against Argentina was set up, but this gathering had done a great deal to boost team spirit and morale.

Brian returned to Dublin at the end of the get-together, and it was only a matter of days before he discovered there was a nasty flipside to his elevated level of fame.

He had been living very happily at ‘number 35’ and had found he could go about his business quite easily without too much hassle. He lived surprisingly modestly for a man of his stature and was happy just being an ordinary bloke when he was among his local community. However, his profile had undoubtedly rocketed in the last few months, especially in the few weeks since he was named Lions captain. Things were about to change, and Brian was about to get a very rude awakening and see the other side of life as a famous sports star.

Brian returned from the get-together in Wales to find youngsters literally camped out in his garden waiting for him. Across the road, he could see several photographers hiding. He had no front gate and no privacy. This was becoming a problem and potential threat to his safety. He knew the time was right to move.

He had his eye on a property in Dublin’s Herbert Road, but he couldn’t afford it just yet. Brian had become something of a property bore just recently, and would flick to the property pages in the local paper even before checking the rugby results.

Brian was also still slightly distracted by the Leinster situation. They had finished a disappointing third in the Celtic League, way behind the Ospreys and Munster, and Brian met with some senior members of the squad to discuss the best way forward. Brian held the view that Leinster urgently needed a specialist coach who could take their individual games forward as well as put an overall game plan into practice.

In the days and weeks that followed, Brian found himself obliged to do more interviews than he had ever done before. As Ireland captain, he was now well used to having to do a number of interviews per day. Now he was captain of the Lions, and this meant the intensity and quantity of the interviews would only increase. But Brian stuck to his well-rehearsed routine. He remained firmly on message and made sure he said the same thing in every interview. He knew from past experience that an attempt at trying to be humorous could easily be taken out of context and this was certainly not the time to be starting a war of words with anyone.

The key point Brian tried to get across in every interview was that all 44 players getting on the plane on 25 May stood a realistic chance of getting in the Test side. The same could not be said of the 2001 tour. There was competition for places. Even a fit Jonny Wilkinson could not take his place in the team for granted with Stephen Jones in such superb form.

Brian made it clear in these interviews that he did not even dare take his own place in the team for granted. Yes, he was captain, and, by right, that should mean that he was an automatic choice. Yet he knew that he had to prove every day that he was worthy of his place as there were players who would more than hold their own at centre. He knew he had to lead by example, to play the best rugby of his life and encourage those around him to do the same.

Brian stated that, for him, a Lions tour to New Zealand held as much gravitas as playing in a World Cup final. He also repeatedly praised Sir Clive Woodward and the coaching setup, and said the preparation to date could not have been better.

At the end of April, Brian took a break from the Lions build-up by playing for Leinster in their Celtic Cup quarter-final clash against Glasgow. The tournament might not have been at the top of Brian’s priority list at the beginning of the season, but Leinster had crashed and burned in all other competitions and capturing this piece of silverware would give a much-needed morale boost to the squad following Declan Kidney’s departure.

Leinster won the game but the performance was hardly convincing. They had moments of skilful brilliance but these were more than outweighed by shoddy defending that almost allowed Glasgow to steal the game.

Unsurprisingly, it was the in-form Brian who was at the heart of Leinster’s most impressive move of the match when he charged into the defence and threw a back-flip pass into space, knowing full well Gordon D’Arcy was running into it. Gordon then passed out to Girvan Dempsey to score a well-rehearsed, perfectly executed try.

The following week Brian declared that enough was enough and there would be no more press interviews for the time being. He decided that there was enough physical and psychological preparation to be done in the short time that remained before the plane left and he felt he had been more than generous with the time he had given the press and had easily fulfilled his obligations as captain.

In one of his last interviews, Paul Ackford in the Sunday Telegraph drew attention to the size of Brian’s arse. Paul was taken aback by how stocky Brian was when he saw him in the flesh. The truth was that the game had changed a great deal in the last few years and Brian was a good example of how world-class centres in the future would be built.

Brian received some encouraging news from Clive when he was told that Jonny had come through a full 80 minutes for Newcastle, scoring six goals and setting up a try against London Irish. It’s hard to see how the news could have been more encouraging, but Clive wanted to see him play another 80 minutes before making his final decision.

Brian began to focus purely on the rugby, and there was nothing quite like a match against Munster for focusing Brian’s attentions. This was the Celtic Cup semi-final, and Brian did not underestimate the importance of this game.

Yes, it was undoubtedly important for Leinster to receive a lift after the season they’d had. Yet it was also important that Brian and all of the other Lions tour players who took to the pitch had some competitive match practice with the days ticking by until the plane left.

The match was a typical niggly encounter between the two sides. Kiwi Dave Holwell was sent off for Leinster over a petty incident with just five minutes to play. The game was tight and this left Leinster feeling unbalanced and allowed an Anthony Foley try to steal the game for Munster in the final minute.

It was a disappointing and frustrating end to a pretty miserable season for Leinster. The season promised so much yet everything fell away, although there was no denying the part off-the-field problems at the club contributed towards the disappointment.

Brian knew there wasn’t time to dwell on it and he simply had to focus on the Lions from now on. That same evening Clive phoned Brian to tell him that Jonny had come through another 80 minutes and was fit to go on tour. This gave Brian’s mood a massive lift. He firmly believed that Jonny was the best fly-half in the world and his inclusion in the squad would rumble the All Blacks. He also knew that Stephen Jones was in the form of his life and Jonny would have to stay on his toes to keep his place in the team. Inevitably, there were a few injury worries in the squad but this news gave a massive boost to Brian and lifted the morale of the whole squad.

Clive was less happy with his former employers at the RFU over their attitude towards England coaches and staff involved with the Lions tour. They had each received a letter asking them to log any time over 15 minutes they spent on Lions business before their contracts officially began on 17 May. Clive was understandably outraged at the pettiness of it but soon decided not to waste his time fighting a battle when the squad needed to be focused on other things. Brian saw this for the comical squabble it was, and decided not to waste his time elbowing in on something so silly.

The following day, Brian’s problems were put firmly into perspective when he discovered that the Leinster team doctor had suffered an unbearable tragedy on the Saturday. Jim McShane’s three-year-old son Teddy had been killed in a drowning accident. Brian was very fond of Jim and his wife Dolores and was greatly saddened by the tragedy. At the funeral just two days later at Dun Laoghaire, Brian was moved to tears by the sight of the little white coffin being carried down the aisle at the beginning of the service.

The whole Leinster squad attended the service and it reminded every one of them that there were far worse things in life than losing a game of rugby.

They had been planning a squad night out to say farewell to a number of players who were moving on. Victor Costello was retiring, while David Holwell was returning to New Zealand. Meanwhile, Shane Jennings and Leo Cullen were moving to Leicester. The original plan was to meet in Kiely’s in Donnybrook, but following the tragedy nobody was in the mood for celebrating. Instead, they had a few quiet pints before agreeing to meet up again under happier circumstances.

The rest of the week was a rare lull in Brian’s hectic schedule. It was very much the case of being the calm before the storm. He kept his body in shape but didn’t over-train; instead, he used the week to tie up some loose ends.

He took some time out to read the sack loads of good-luck cards and letters he had received, which included a letter wishing him well from Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Other notable well-wishers included former Lions captain Ronnie Dawson, which Brian greatly appreciated.

The squad were going to get together at the familiar surroundings of the Vale of Glamorgan hotel in the days before the flight to New Zealand, and the time had come for Brian to say goodbye to friends and family. It wasn’t so much a case of saying ‘goodbye’ to those closest to him – most of them would be taking a trip out to New Zealand to watch him play at some point – but it certainly was a case of saying goodbye to his home, to his familiar surroundings and to Dublin, a place he would not see again for another two months. From now on, he would be living out of a suitcase.

Brian checked into the hotel early on the Monday morning, before making the two-hour trip to London for a TAG photoshoot, then back to Cardiff for another shoot with Gillette and then back to the Vale for some more snaps for Adidas. The hectic schedule of that first day away from home helped Brian forget the nervous feelings he had been experiencing for the last few days. That evening, he bumped into Jonny – who was looking in trim shape and ready for battle to commence – in the hotel lobby.

The following day was far more boring, with most of it spent on administrative matters such as filling in insurance forms and autographing piles of memorabilia. During the course of the day, most of the rest of the squad arrived at the hotel and checked in. The one notable exception was Iain Balshaw who was forced to withdraw from the tour with a quadricep injury.

Brian felt a great deal of sympathy for Iain’s predicament and it served as a firm reminder to him and the rest of the squad that they were all just one bad tackle away from being out of the tour themselves. An in-form Mark Cueto took Iain’s place in the squad, which came as some consolation to Brian who had seen the rich try-scoring form he had been in for Sale during the season.

It so happened that the Manchester United team were staying in the same hotel that week as they were playing in the FA Cup final at the Millennium Stadium that weekend. This allowed Brian an opportunity to talk properly to one of his all-time heroes, their captain Roy Keane.

Known for his no-nonsense captaincy and blunt way of getting his point across, Roy had some firm advice for Brian. He told him to be his own man, to look after himself and make sure he was on top of his game. Brian was already doing exactly this, but hearing it from someone who had been there, done that and got the T-shirt, as well as being a fellow Irishman, certainly meant a lot. The principles of captaincy in both sports are much the same and this chat went a long way towards boosting Brian’s confidence in his own ability.

On the Saturday, the whole Lions squad headed to the Millennium Stadium to watch Manchester United play Arsenal. As a massive United fan, this was a dream come true for Brian who had not had the time to watch his beloved team play for 18 months. He had also never been to an FA Cup final before, so this was a big day for him, and a chance to take his mind off the upcoming tour for a while.

The whole squad had VIP tickets but Brian insisted on turning up in United colours and certainly wore his heart on his sleeve during the game.

The match went to penalties following a goalless, but entertaining 90 minutes. Arsenal ultimately won the shoot-out, which left Brian in a grumpy mood as he had to endure a great deal of taunting from Llanelli coach Gareth Jenkins, a fanatical Gooner. Nevertheless, Brian enjoyed the opportunity to switch off and let others do the hard work for a change.

After dinner that evening, Brian and the others not taking part in the warm-up game against Argentina on the Monday were given permission by Clive to go into Cardiff for a night out. It would be their last opportunity to have a proper drink for at least the next two weeks.

They headed off into town in their Range Rover, complete with minders who had previously served in the SAS. They had got a few miles down the road when their vehicle suddenly ground to a halt. The minders leaped out instantly to protect the players from any kind of sabotage, though there was nothing to worry about.

After using their military experience to identify the problem, the SAS veterans discovered that the problem was, rather embarrassingly, that they had run out of petrol! Another standby vehicle was provided and they were soon on their way again.

Cardiff was still buzzing from Wales’s spectacular Grand Slam victory and Brian and the lads enjoyed mixing with the Welsh public in the clubs and bars that evening. Inevitably, as the evening wore on and the drink began to set in, a small number of people approached Brian and the others looking for a fight. Fortunately, the minders were never too far away and there were times during the evening when their presence was greatly appreciated.