O’Driscoll on the home straight of glittering international career
Gifted centre rates with Kyle, McBride and Gibson as an Irish great, but he just wants to be remembered as a team player
"In no time, no one will remember me."
Of all the words that will be written and spoken about Ireland rugby great Brian O'Driscoll as the gifted centre enters the final stage of his test career, surely none will prove so wide of the mark as his own absurdly modest self-assessment delivered this week.
Far more likely is that when O'Driscoll's youngest admirers are themselves old men they will reminisce fondly about having seen him in action just as their forebears talk of Jack Kyle, Ireland's brilliant 1948 grand slam-winning fly half, Willie John McBride, the second row colossus and captain of the all-conquering British and Irish Lions in South Africa in 1974, or that other great Ireland stalwart of the 1960s and 1970s, Mike Gibson - arguably the only player who can top "BOD" as Irish rugby's best all-time centre.
That celebrated trio of Irish rugby greats all come from the British-controlled province of Northern Ireland, whereas O'Driscoll is from the independent southern republic, a distinction that matters less in rugby union than many other sports given that the 15-man game remained an all-island-of-Ireland affair even after partition in the 1920s.
But Gibson and O'Driscoll do have some things in common.
Gibson retired as the world's most-capped player, with 81 tests to his name, including 12 for the Lions, in 15 years.