Brian O’Driscoll was hoping to go out in glory before his final British and Irish Lions game – even thinking he might be captain – but instead was dropped by Warren Gatland
Brian O’Driscoll admits he thought he was potentially on to be British and Irish Lions captain for the decisive Third Test against Australia in 2013 – only to end up being dropped for the crucial clash.
The Ireland icon, then playing in the final of his four Lions tours, had start in the first two Tests in the 13 jersey and was hoping to play a crucial role in the winner takes all game in Sydney.
Instead Warren Gatland‘s decision to drop him and opt for the Wales centre partnership would end up being one of the most infamous selections calls in Lions history. O’Driscoll admits he took it easy at the start of the week, thinking injuries to leadership personnel might have seen him assume the captaincy.
Instead it was quite the opposite and Lions assistant coach Rob Howley came over and asked him for a chat, with O’Driscoll quickly clocking he wasn’t going to enjoy the conversation.
He told the Telegraph: “I trained Monday, trained Tuesday and when the squad was picked on Wednesday, I thought I might be captain, because Paul O’Connell and Sam Warburton were injured. I was making a cup of coffee when I got a tap on the shoulder, and I knew immediately it was not the kind of tap on the shoulder that a captain gets…”
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O’Driscoll and Jonathan Davies had partnered up in the centres with Jamie Roberts injured. O’Driscoll and Roberts had struck an impressive partnership four years earlier in South Africa, but instead Gatland leant back on his Welsh stars in the 12 and 13 jerseys.
It didn’t take long for the message to come across to the Irishman, who aired his thoughts with the coaches, but always knew that Davies and Roberts had winning experience together with the pieces of the puzzle not falling in his favour as he watched the Lions win the series decider.
“It was a quick conversation,” he recalled. “The only thing I said to them was that they should not have put me up for media if they were going to drop me, but they hadn’t had any of their coaches’ meetings by then.
“At the time I didn’t even ask if I was on the bench or not, so when the squad was read out later it dawned on me that I wasn’t going to be involved at all. But I got that. I was not a bench player, Manu Tuilagi [who was named on the replacements] had played a bit of wing too, and I had never really played there.
“But the thing for me, is that Foxy [Davies] and Jamie had gone so well together with Wales in the Six Nations. We had beaten them, but they had won the title. So, for me, the best chance of playing in the Test series was also with Manu. We played well together in the first match but then he got injured. Myself and Foxy were not a good partnership, we were both out and out 13s trying to make it work because the other two were injured. We weren’t cohesive.”
