Seán O'Brien yesterday confirmed he was very close to leaving Leinster and joining Toulon toward the end of his protracted negotiations last January, which ultimately culminated in him signing a two-year IRFU international contract to stay with his native province. Although he did not divulge details, O'Brien was believed to have come within 24 hours of joining the French outfit before an improved IRFU offer persuaded him to stay.

Serious thought
"I thought about it yeah," O'Brien admitted yesterday. "The couple of days before that I was kind of swaying, I was thinking to myself 'what am I going to do?' and I was talking to my friends and family about it. Yeah, I'd given it serious thought but thankfully in the end everything worked out. "

That would have made his recent trip to Toulon for Leinster’s Heineken Cup quarter-final defeat “very interesting recently if it had of worked out that way,” he admitted, smiling. “Thankfully it didn’t and I am very pleased to be staying with Leinster and Ireland.”

O’Brien was speaking at the IRB/TV3 press conference which confirmed the free-to-air broadcasters had won the rights to the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England. Hopefully now about to reach the peak years of his career, the 27-year-old clearly preferred remaining in Leinster, even if the disparity in the two offers had to be reduced significantly for him to stay, and the onset of that competition was a primary factor in the desire to remain at home.

“It was a massive factor in it. If I was to go away, I suppose I would have been away from home a lot more. I mightn’t have been as well looked after as well, especially leading into a World Cup year and that counts for a lot especially when you have big aspirations with Ireland as well, in the Six Nations next year and November even.”

O’Brien won the last of his 30 caps against New Zealand last November, having dislocated his shoulder at the turn of the year in the Leinster-Ulster game at the RDS, and was thus forced to watch Ireland’s Six Nations title coronation in Paris from his sofa in Tullow.

“It wasn’t easy to watch,” he said, in particular reference to the last five minutes. “I was absolutely delighted when the final whistle blew. But a couple of minutes later I was thinking ‘Jesus Christ I should have been involved like’, you know what I mean? And you kinda hit a bit of a low. At the same time you are delighted for the lads and how they went about their business the whole tournament.”

Back in January, there seemed the very real possibility he had played his last game for Leinster, but it transpires he might make the Pro12 play-offs should Leinster reach the last four. He is, he said, "flying along" and added: "I'm kind of into my second week now of hard training. I'll know where I am in two more weeks. I'll probably know then exactly when I'll be coming back."

Comeback
A comeback in the play-offs was "a long shot but if things went really well this week and the next two weeks who knows?"

But being a waterboy in Toulon did not especially whet his appetite. “They’re obviously a class team and they played very well that day. I don’t think we showed up, though. We were still only two scores in it at the end regardless of how they played. It would have been a different story if we just had played a lot more. We dropped a lot of balls and made a lot of mistakes. We didn’t come off the line hard enough. There were so many things that day. That’s done and dusted now and we’ve got to look forward and try to win the league.”

Meanwhile, Leinster report that Fergus McFadden's knee injury "is not as bad as first feared and he should make a return before the end of the season" while Jack McGrath will be available again this week and Luke Fitzgerald has trained all week.