OW GLORIOUSLY fi tting that Brian O’Driscoll’s fi rst-born was delivered on the morning of a momentous


Test match in Dublin. Out she popped – apologies to the lovely Amy if ‘popped’ is, er, a simplifi cation of the reality – at 10.30am on game day, suffi cient time to let Dad witness the happy event and then get himself off to the Aviva to wet the baby’s head by way of a deluge from the skies. Such extremes for Ireland’s colossus.


FAS T FAC T S


BRIAN GERALD O’DRISCOLL


Age 34 (21 Jan 1979) Born Dublin


Province Leinster Position Centre


Test debut v Aus 1999 Ireland caps 123 Ireland points 245 (46T, 5DG)


Lions caps Six (1T)


A morning of sheer beauty followed by a beastly afternoon, an ugly game made ever more ugly by the scoreline at the end. A daughter arrives and a Grand Slam departs. The Big Man giveth and the Big Man taketh away. If you believe in


fate and destiny then you would have hocked your


worldly possessions and lumped the cash on Ireland beating England that dank February afternoon. A new O’Driscoll enters the world that morning. Surely a sign from God. Surely O’Driscoll was about to add


another special day in Dublin against the English to the game-winning try in 2005, the record-busting rout of 2007, the Man of the Match performance of 2009 and the glory of 2011, when England came looking for a Grand Slam and were battered to smithereens, O’Driscoll breaking the all-time Six Nations try-scoring record that same day. Fate? Destiny? Let’s do it for little


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