Johnny Watterson hears from the Ireland number six about finding form ahead of a certain 'full-metal-jacket' affair on Saturday
Eddie O'Sullivan knows his way around a sound bite. "It's a four-letter word beginning with F," he says with a barely perceptible theatrical pause. "Form is what you pick a team on."
O'Sullivan's selections have never really deviated from that four-letter word and with the sackful of talent available to him in the back row, form is what he has been harvesting from the provincial sides.
The Ulster flanker, Neil Best, has stepped in on the back of Ulster form. Simon Easterby, who captained the Irish side this time last year, sits on the bench. Easterby may now also be thinking of a four-letter word beginning with F. It's not form.
But with Best everything is straightforward. He's that sort of player on the field; like all the best marauders, he plays his game on the edge, fearless and aggressive. "I was surprised that I got the nod today," he says. "I knew I was in the 22 so the worst-case scenario was that I was going to sit on the bench. The best-case scenario was that I was starting, so I wasn't really worried.
"Eddie picks the team. If he thinks I've played well then he picks me. That's how it works. If I don't play well I get dropped. This is not my jersey at all."
It's where Best left off in Australia on Ireland's summer tour. Of course he has just five international caps, and not many brows would have furrowed had O'Sullivan opted for the Llanelli player instead. But the backrow make-up has always been a theatre of hot debate.
"It's always difficult," says O'Sullivan. "It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Simon Easterby and this was a very tough call. But Neil Best has played very well for Ulster and it was a toss of a coin between the two of them. Neil had a very good tour in the summer and he's carried that form into the season."
The flanker likes to cook in his spare time, particularly desserts, but the Wellington College boy is no souffle. Man of the match at Stradey Park a few weeks ago and a constant stand-out performer for Ulster coach Mark McCall, Best goes into Saturday's game knowing he will face a Springbok pack O'Sullivan has characterised as "monstrous" and mix it in a contest the coach sees as "a full-metal-jacket affair".
"I think size is unimportant," says Best to a small ripple of giggles. "I've watched the games. I've watched the players in my opposite position. We do our analysis quite thoroughly. I know that they (South Africans) are five maybe eight kilos heavier than I am. It's not a weight competition. We're rugby players. Their size doesn't cut the mustard with me. As far as I'm concerned, guys can be bigger and stronger but it doesn't necessarily make them better rugby players.
"I'm not worried about them being monstrous or physical because I knew they'd be big. I'm not surprised by you telling me that."
It's fighting talk from Best and he's not alone in going into the match confident Ireland have a chance of winning, despite having beaten the Springboks only twice.
He also understands how O'Sullivan operates and when a player has the blindside number, it is up to his rivals to take it off him. Best is in possession and his game, as he sees it, has developed; he is no longer just the rampaging hit-man with a penchant for the sinbin.
"I'd like to think it has (developed). There's no point getting to a certain level and staying there," he says. "I want to progress - become better and better and better. I think I probably have got better. Better decision-making, better skills, better hands, better defensively in the lineout as well as in the attacking ones. I'm progressing I think."
He came from a hockey-playing school and had no aspirations to see rugby as anything other than a recreational game until he graduated from university at the age of 22. In a sense Best is an experienced hand with low mileage. With a Masters degree in polymer engineering, he knows words much longer than four letters. For now, though, the F word will do just fine.
