Ireland v Argentina: Johnny Watterson talks to Malcolm O'Kelly about the often unappreciated role the lock performs for a team.
Malcolm O'Kelly denies it was him who described a lock's job as drain-cleaning. Maybe it was Trevor Brennan or Gary Longwell. Maybe someone made it up in a newspaper. The fact is: unless they soar in the lineout like O'Kelly or are a 6ft 8ins splicing of ballerina and sprinter, the secondrow player does not lead an eye-catching life.
A slice of lock life was part of O'Kelly's World Cup diary last year in the Sunday Times. "I was one behind Paulie (O'Connell) in that maul (against Namibia) and I had a very good view of what went on," he wrote. "Basically, yer man, their second row, tried to pull it down and he failed and every rugby player knows that when you fail to pull down a maul the only thing you can hope for is a quick death. When you're stuck on the ground with a pack of forwards driving over you, it can get a bit hairy. We've all been in that position. I tried to pull down a maul in New Zealand last summer and got spat out the other side. What the guy should have done tonight was roll out of there as fast as he could instead of looking up at us feeling sorry for himself."
Down creating chaos with the opposition's harmony, he's gouging out balls, taking studs on his back, trying to create order from the tangle of limbs and rugby laws that describe the breakdown, ruck and maul. He's a foundation for the team to trigger the Brian O'Driscolls, Denis Hickies and Geordan Murphys. Drain cleaners unclog the mess. O'Kelly takes a less pejorative view.
"Drain cleaners? I don't know," he says. "Maybe the construction worker or the builder. It's not a glamorous position. But I think we get as much appreciation for the hard work done. I'd gladly see Brian O'Driscoll score three or four tries in a game if the work is done by us."
O'Kelly is now a regular on the Irish team and was one of the Irish players South African coach Jake White indelicately nominated, along with O'Driscoll and O'Connell, as good enough even for the Springboks. With 67 international appearances, he is now also Ireland's most capped lock and second on the all-time caps list to Mike Gibson on 69. The Six Nations Championship in 2005 is likely to crown O'Kelly as Ireland's most capped player.
"What Jake White said, I think the lads got more of a laugh out of it than I did. My mother really enjoyed it," he says. "I didn't take any pleasure from it. Regardless of who he picked, the fact that he had that attitude of demeaning us was a naive kind of thing to do."
O'Kelly's experience and performances are also becoming an accepted standard in the Irish team. It wasn't always that way. Dropped to the bench for Gary Longwell in the 2001, the Ulster player then proceeded to break his finger leaving a hole for O'Kelly to step back in and have a magnificent game against England.
Last year after Ireland's game with France, Eddie O'Sullivan let Donncha O'Callaghan off the leash against Wales before he ripped his ligaments. Again the former Templeogue College and Trinity student came in recharged, refocused and proceeded to rain all over O'Callaghan's brief promotion. For O'Kelly, the bench had almost behaved like a motivational tool.
"Sometimes you require motivation to get you up to the level required," he says. "Sometimes you don't realise the level that's required. Every year the benchmark is being set. I think this year I've tried to set it. I don't mean that in an arrogant way. I just feel that it is time I really stood up a bit more and in that way help the team and the squad.
"In Leinster now I've been given a little bit more responsibility with Declan Kidney coming in. I've asked for it in terms of being one of the five or six vice-captains. I think that has helped me reach the level I want to. It's just development really."
Selected for the Lions Tour in the summer of 2001 for the series against Australia reflected O'Kelly's reputation outside Ireland as well as within and if White was right in one aspect of his assassination of diplomacy, it was that O'Kelly is one of Ireland's regular stand-out players.
These days more is also expected from him in addition to his role of securing lineout possession. The tackle that ended the surge of England front row Mark Regan just inches from the Irish line last season and the occasional sight of his huge frame raiding through the gain line have punctuated the sleeves-up pack work.
Far from being weary of it, or scarred by seven years of international competition, O'Kelly wishes to improve and has a view on how to achieve it.
"There are things I want to work at and have been working at," he says.
"In terms of defence, maybe taking ball on, simple things like that are required for a four or five player. General leadership. It's important to stand up and do the hard work, the dirty work. If you are a front five player, you have to do that work and be physically strong enough to do it."
Construction or sanitation, the 30-year-old continues to work his shifts, setting the bar high, now one half of a world-class Irish second row.
