WHILE AN INJURY picked up in Ireland’s final warm-up game against Samoa ruled Cian Healy out of the Rugby World Cup, one of the loosehead prop’s Leinster team-mates ultimately managed to avoid suffering a similar fate.

Jimmy O’Brien was forced off during the second half with a shoulder injury, and while he was eventually named in the final squad for the tournament, he was still going through rehabilitation during the early weeks of Ireland’s RWC campaign.

O’Brien subsequently regained full fitness, and could have played against Tonga in their second Pool B game at a push.

But the versatile back was the only player in the 33-man selection that didn’t feature for Ireland in the pool stages of the tournament, before coming off the bench in the quarter-finals against New Zealand.

Considering what might have been, the Kildare native was thrilled that his World Cup dream wasn’t cruelly cut short and that he finally got to see game time in their agonising loss to the All Blacks.

“I was just delighted to go in the end,” he said this week.

“I went for a scan when we landed coming back from Samoa, just before the squad was getting picked. That was pretty much fine, the MRI, but I had to go for an x-ray then after.

“They said they’d name me in the squad, but the result didn’t come in until that evening. I was just named and [it was a case of] they’ll manage me over there. See how it is. I was just delighted to go and just had to do a bit of rehab over there at the start.

“It would have been a bit disappointing if I didn’t get to play at all, but at the same time, it was an unbelievable experience over there.

“I was delighted when I got picked and got a bit of game time. That kind of made it for me.”

– Confidence – 

Despite his lack of action leading up to it, O’Brien did make a strong impact after taking over from Mack Hansen in the 56th minute of the New Zealand game. According to stats from the IRFU’s official website, the versatile back gained an impressive 68 metres off nine carries following his second-half introduction.

However, O’Brien did his best to downplay the fact that he was coming into the contest relatively cold.

“Personally I was just going on against New Zealand. It was another game of rugby when I got on the pitch and the first moment settled me down. I straight away asked Johnny [Sexton] the call. He told me the call and to just kind of get into it.

“Not try and overthink it, overthink the whole occasion and going into different positions. Just ask the lads around ‘what do you think?’ if I don’t know. Just be as calm as possible. If you’re panicking, they’ll start panicking that you don’t know what you’re doing. Just be calm and talk to them and get on the pitch. It seems to go better.”

– Competition –

Given the New Zealand game proved to be his solitary appearance at the tournament, O’Brien was unsurprisingly one of the World Cup contingent that returned for Leinster in their visit to Dragons in the United Rugby Championship last Sunday.

He is also expected to feature in the RDS tomorrow when the eastern province entertain Scarlets in the URC.

In a sense, the Eadestown man has found himself coming full circle with Leinster. Having featured heavily at the start of the 2019/20 Pro14 season while the Blues’ internationals were working their way back from a World Cup in Japan, O’Brien was watching on in recent weeks as some of the province’s fringe players and academy hopefuls were trying to get them off the ground in the URC.

“It was great to get back, it was unreal to get back and play the full 80 minutes [against Dragons]. To be back playing for Leinster was enjoyable and hopefully I’ll play again this weekend. I was watching all the games, all the lads playing the first few rounds.

“It’s a great opportunity for lads when the Irish players are away to put their hand up and definitely a few lads did. There is always loads of competition here in Leinster, but I think a lot of lads put their hand up in the first few games.”

Daire Walsh