RUGBY:MALCOLM O'KELLY and Frank Sinatra danced to the tune My Way, albeit in differing contexts. The Leinster secondrow's decision to unwittingly commandeer – he wasn't present at the time – the first eight minutes of Leinster coach Michael Cheika's press conference yesterday was entirely appropriate given the long shadow O'Kelly cast over Irish rugby.
Cheika offered a warm and occasionally funny testimonial to O’Kelly on a day when the Lions, Ireland, Leinster and St Mary’s College secondrow decided to announce he would retire from professional rugby at the end of the season.
The stories about O’Kelly’s occasional eccentricities are legion but should in no way be regarded as a diminution of his talent or the hugely positive impact he enjoyed on and off the playing pitch.
While the Leinster coach initially dwelled on one secondrow, he was soon forced to confirm another, his captain Leo Cullen, would miss Saturday’s Magners League semi-final against Munster at the RDS.
“He (Leo) just got a bad trauma to his shoulder. He won’t be available for this match but we’d be hopeful that his season is not over yet,” said Cheika.
The prognosis elsewhere is the squad is rather mixed and can be summarised thus: Gordon D’Arcy (head) will play, Jonathan Sexton (jaw) should be fit to play, Shane Jennings (leg) is expected to be available, Shaun Berne (quad) might not make it and finally Seán O’Brien (leg) won’t.
Sexton’s return would be a significant boost for the young outhalf – Berne and last weekend, Isa Nacewa have done a sterling job in his absence – and Cheika seemed to endorse the likelihood of that happening.
“I’d say Johnny Sexton is going to be alright. He’s just trained now. He probably could have edged it (in playing) last week but we decided not to,” said the Leinster coach.
Jennings didn’t train yesterday, nor did Berne but both will be assessed rigorously tomorrow before a final decision is made on the composition of the team for the Munster match.
Mention of Leinster’s erstwhile rivals and opponents on the weekend drew a tongue-in-cheek inquiry about whether Cheika would miss Munster when he hits the Parisian walkways from this summer.
The Australian smiled: “I don’t coach them, do I? It’s been an enlightening experience for me. Those big derby matches are everything that’s good about the game; even the losses.
“They invoke the same type of emotions because you want to win so much in derby matches. I hope I will run into them again some time soon after I leave,” before quickly adding he didn’t want it to be next season.
“Yeah, some time in the future because they are a quality outfit. You know that you’re always going to have to battle to the very end against them because that is what the game is about.
“We all love to talk about great victories, and winning tournaments but at the end of the day when Saturday comes along you want to have a good go and no team gives you a better run-in than those chaps.”
Three Leinster victories in succession haven’t hoodwinked Cheika about the size of the challenge that Munster will present on Saturday night.
“Every ruck, every ball is going to be contested fiercely. You saw the way they played against Cardiff; they fought for every ball on the ground, contested everything.
“It wasn’t pretty but they really showed their character in fighting for every ball. If there is one thing that we are well aware of, it is we are going to have to be at our most physical if we want to win the game.”
O’Kelly will start in Cullen’s absence and it’s appropriate to recount two tiny vignettes that Cheika shared about the player, encompassing humour and ability.
The Australian mused: “He is sometimes the butt of the team joke with regard to tardiness or attention to detail regarding the calendar per se. I am putting that in an elegant way and I’d like to be quoted in that way.
“I have a real picture of him in my mind of the way he played when he just started to go out of the international scene. We had him for a match when he broke the record for the number of games for Leinster – it has since been broken again – against Llanelli, a game we had to win in the season that we won the Magners League.
“It was pouring rain and he just worked like a dog. He got a try, burrowed his way over to win us the game.
“That just about says it all about the guy. The way he worked that day after missing out on the international scene which he would have been used to at that time of year . . . he just wants Leinster to do well and it is going to be a big loss for the club.”
Not quite yet though.
