Further recognition of Paul O’Connell’s remarkable Indian summer came from his peers last night, when the Irish captain was chosen as the Irish Rugby Union Players’ Association Player of the Year for a second time. Rarely can this award have been so justified.
In bridging a nine-year gap since the first time he was honoured by his fellow professionals, in 2005-06, O’Connell thus emulated Gordon D’Arcy and Tommy Bowe in becoming a two-time winner, and augments his Six Nations’ player of the tournament award.
"I think maybe finishing the Six Nations well helped me. It was the closest thing in people's minds," the 35-year-old told The Irish Times yesterday in advance of last night's annual Hibernia College IRUPA Rugby Players Award in the DoubleTree by Hilton, when he was chosen from a shortlist that also included Conor Murray, Johnny Sexton and Robbie Henshaw.
“I am delighted and hopefully I am a symbol for older players that you can still do it if you train in the right way. Look, these individual awards don’t matter a whole lot in team sports but it’s still brilliant to get it.”
It is a measure of O’Connell’s health and influence that he has played the full 80 minutes of all of his 20 games for province and country this season, bar 10 minutes for a yellow card in the 21-18 defeat away to Glasgow in December. It was brandished erroneously too by Leighton Hodges as O’Connell played the ball legally on the Glasgow side of the ruck as it was in the in-goal area.
He’s had “a few niggles during the year”, an example being the shoulder injury which meant he went into last Saturday’s draw against Ulster with one game in six weeks. “And boy could I feel it, particularly in the first half,” he admitted. “But I’ve just managed myself a little bit better than I used to and I’m able to listen to my body a little bit better, and because of that I’ve managed to avoid some of the silly injuries I may have picked up in the past.”
Indeed, this current campaign backs up last season when O’Connell started 24 of his 26 matches for Munster and Ireland. “My diet is probably more lax than it ever was. I used to be quite strict in my diet but I realised that actually made no difference to me. I eat healthily, but I eat whatever I like. Actually I’ve plenty of fat in my diet because I’m always trying to put on weight. It’s hard to put on weight when you’ve a very strict diet.”
He’s also learned that less can be more. “Certainly in the gym I do a bit less than I used to. I don’t try to compete with people as much as I used to in the gym. I have specific exercises which suit my body and very often when I come in after a game, if I’m not right I’ll tell the coach and I’ll walk out the door and not do anything, which is something I could never live with myself doing when I was younger.”
First guys out there
“I warm up a lot more than I used to. It is great when you are young the way you can just go out on a pitch and get going straight away but unfortunately now I have to be one of the first guys out there, about half an hour before training. I’ve a list of things I need to get through to get my body right before I train.
“I feel a bit more relaxed as well than I used to. Having a settled family life at home and a nice lifestyle in Limerick probably helps that.”
An hour-long chat with Brad Thorn (Rob Penney having set up the contact) was a help. “I made an awful lot of changes to the things that I did based on it; things around training and doing what suits my body, around warming up properly. It was just great information with no bull. Everything was very easy to apply.”
But O’Connell has no desire to emulate Thorn by playing until he’s 40, and repeated he would decide on his future in the summer. “I should have done it by now but it’s not an easy thing to do. We had our ‘going away’ do yesterday for some of the players who are not with us next season. They’re always very emotional but I definitely come out of them thinking how lucky I’ve been and it’s a hard thing to walk away, especially when you don’t feel too bad.
“I kinda have an idea of what I want to do. I just want to make sure, and I think when you go and say it in the media, you’re kind of stuck with it a little bit. I spoke to AP McCoy about it and he said that he’s kind of punishing himself. He decided he was doing something and he’s sticking to it, and he’s making sure he sticks with it. I just don’t want to do that.”
The jury is still out on Munster’s season, though there is at least still plenty to play for; at international level, O’Connell captained Ireland to wins over South Africa and Australia and a retention of the Six Nations, with the only blemish being that defeat in Wales on his 100th Test for Ireland.
Great season
“When we look back at that Welsh game, I think it will be a help for us,” he said. “Even though it was a great season, that game will be a bit of a regret for me because we had a line-out turnover on our line that led to their try, and even before that there was a turnover in a ruck which I probably could have prevented. Those things play in the back of my mind but at the same time to win the championship back-to-back, for a country with four professional teams, is a great achievement, and it was really, really enjoyable as well. It’s great to be my age and enjoying it so much.”
O’Connell was also named as the Newstalk Supporters’ Player of the Year, while Henshaw was named the Nevin Spence Young Player of the Year for the third year in succession, making him the only player to win three awards in a row. Henshaw also won the VW Try of the Year for his try against England in the RBS Six Nations.
David Wallace was the latest inductee into the BNY Mellon IRUPA Hall of Fame. Leinster’s Darragh Fanning collected the 3 Unsung Hero Award, while Connacht’s Michael Swift was awarded the Hibernia College Medal for Excellence. The Zurich Contribution to Irish Society was presented to Alan Quinlan in recognition of his work raising the profile of mental health issues in Ireland. The BNY Mellon Women’s Sevens Player of the Year, as voted by members of the Ireland Sevens squad, was won by Lucy Mulhall.
