It’s one of the curious aspects of Tommy O’Brien’s career that he eventually earned his first three full international caps in Tbilisi, Lisbon and Chicago, but it’s another thing winning your first cap in Dublin.
Even after playing against the All Blacks a week ago, in a sense that must have made it a little more real.
“It’s my first one in the Aviva, my first time playing for Ireland at home, so that was pretty special. I had some family out. My grandparents came out; they haven’t been to a game since I was probably 18. They’re proper glory supporters; they came out for the Irish game. No, I’m only messing. They’re always there, so that was pretty cool.”
“I was kind of having a look during the anthems to see if I could spot anyone but I didn’t, which was probably a good thing. It might have sent me over the edge. But it was good, really special.”
RM Block
At 27, he has had plenty of time to imagine what playing for Ireland would be like and rounding off an Irish win with a sharply-taken 55m try might have seemed like a dream.
His own tackle and counter-ruck forced the loose ball which Sam Prendergast gathered, and they were in harmony when O’Brien took an inside line and accepted the outhalf’s one-handed reverse pass to sprint clear from just inside halfway.
“Me and Sammy were on the same page, I could see he was going across but he didn’t have the wheels to take it the whole way so I dropped under him and he knew what I was going to do. It was nice to be on the same page like that.”
[ Five things we learned from Ireland’s win over JapanOpens in new window ]
“I gave a nice little fist pump into the crowd afterwards, which was cool, but I was blowing hard now getting back. Sammy gave me a nice 50m run-in so I had to give it all. I couldn’t get caught there. I was blowing when I was jogging back but it was pretty cool.”
Irish rugby teams haven’t been overly stacked with genuine pace and O’Brien’s try was welcome evidence that he is one of the few players in the mix who can score like that from long-range.
But there was more than that. While O’Brien’s day was not perfect, as Andy Farrell noted, his man of the match award was well deserved. He grew into the game and the ball also came his way more than in Soldier Field, where O’Brien had just three carries. Against Japan he had a dozen.
“That was definitely a thing we talked about afterwards in the review. It probably was the most frustrating thing; we felt like we didn’t fire any shots. We didn’t give a good account of ourselves because we know what we’re capable of and what we can do.
“So, we just said in the review afterwards that we couldn’t do the same thing again. We couldn’t be looking back on it and think we didn’t fire any shots. So, thankfully the ball came our way a little bit more this time and maybe I went looking for it a little bit more.”
All in all, O’Brien is adjusting well to life in international rugby.
“I guess when you’re in it’s another rugby game, you’ve been doing it your whole life. I’ve been playing it since I was four years old. It’s kind of what I’ve been telling myself before I go out.
“Obviously you want to be able to feed off the crowd and the magnitude of everything and allow yourself to go to another level in terms of finding stuff within you physically that you didn’t realise you had and using the crowd in that capacity.
[ Ireland v Japan player ratings: Tommy O’Brien stars as bench makes big impactOpens in new window ]
“But in terms of weighing on you and nervousness, I’ve actually been okay thankfully. Yeah, really enjoying myself so far.”
He reckons the last time his grandparents, Michael and Bernie, were at one of his games was for his Leinster debut against Ulster at the RDS in December 2019.
“I can’t remember, did they come to my Leinster debut? It was like a freezing December day. So, that would have been a tough, tough one for them to come to. But otherwise it was in school. But they would have been glued to every game on TV. So they’ve always be analysing it from home. My granny Philis as well, she’s always analysing it from home.”
O’Brien had to procure nine tickets for last Saturday’s game but smiles broadly at the thought of having to do so again this week.
“Yeah, exactly! So fingers crossed. We’ll see what happens. But yeah, Australia and South Africa, it doesn’t get much harder and much better than that.”
