Brian O'Driscoll tells Ryan Tubridy of some of the 'frightening' aspects of being Ireland's rugby captain at 23
Brian was the highest try scorer of all time in Irish Rugby and wing two Six Nations.
EC-rugby star Brian O’Driscoll has told of his fright at certain aspects he felt after he was named as Ireland captain when he was just 23-years-old.
The father of three captained Ireland from 2003 until 2012, as well as captaining the British & Irish Lions for their 2005 tour of New Zealand and was the highest try scorer of all time in Irish Rugby and wing two Six Nations.
But speaking to Ryan Tubridy‘s The Bookshelf podcast, Brian - who is married to actress Amy Huberman - revealed how he was “frightened” by some parts of the role.
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He said: “You don’t know what person you’d become if I didn’t go the career I’d went with. Being pushed into the spotlight at a very young age, particularly after scoring the hat-trick against France and very quickly becoming captain way before my time as a 23-year-old.
“You’re really thrown out into the open and have a lot of learning to do. You make mistakes, you have yellow hair for a couple of years and you do some silly stuff. You’re living your mistakes in the public domain. I’ll always look at those young guys coming through now, you’re meant to do that stuff.
“Let them be, you’re trying to find out who you are and what personality traits you have,” he said.
The Dubliner admitted he “lost sleep” whenever he had to publicly speak.
“Whatever about events or dinners, talking to teammates. We used to have the captain’s meeting the night before a test match. I can’t tell you the amount of sleep I lost trying to come up with ten minutes of conversational chat for my peers.
“It was about motivating them about what we were going to do the following day… this was my thoughts they were waiting to hear. Some of the hardest parts of the captaincy.
“You find a way, navigate a path that works for you. Have the odd person talk on my behalf and write my points on an A5 page beside me so all the eyeballs were off me and on the notes,” he said.
Brian added: “You’re out of your comfort zone. I’m happy to do that on the field, that was a natural instinct to go “follow me”. In this contrived environment you’re like ‘oh my goodness, this feels alien’.”
And Brian also admitted that there was a part of him that would’ve loved it if his kids Sadie, Billy and Ted didn’t get a chance to see him play.
"A little bit of me thinks it's a shame that they (my kids) weren't old enough to enjoy even a couple of years (of his playing career).
"You look at someone like Johnny Sexton who's had so much joy with his children - and a bit of heartache as well.
"And a little bit of you thinks 'Umm, that would've been nice.'
"I don't think my son's ever watched a YouTube clip of me in his life. It's Messi and Ronaldo.”
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