The suggestion of lazy summer days and Seán O’Brien shoots a glance across the room. “A day off, not a week,” he says, quickly crushing thoughts of reclining Irish players taking in the rays around UCD.
Ahead of Ireland's second meeting with Wales in the build up to the World Cup, this week is low key but the workload is still intense. The players are "not in the bubble" of Carton House but with the provinces. There is no vacation.
“I think it’s more intense than a Six Nations,” O’Brien says of the pre-World Cup camp. The message is clear. There is no treading water.
The missed tackles against Scotland are an easy fix, he adds, and the session with coach Les Kiss, after they pore over the video, will be "nice". For one of the tackles O'Brien puts his hand up. "I missed a tackle myself on the winger, a one-on-one. It is a little bit of accuracy, a little bit of rustiness from some of us. They are all easily fixable. There was nothing major [against Scotland] that stood out."
O’Brien has had lots of time to reflect after a season of injury but the years are adding freight to the way he sees his career unfold. There were times not so long ago when if he had a day to himself in the week of a match, he’d jump in the car and drive home.
Down to the farm
An hour or so down to the farm in Tullow and an hour or so back the following day. At the time he thought nothing of it; it was a chance to see family and friends, depressurise. But like other habits it has given way to a more body-conscious, mind-conscious player.
“I was probably far too relaxed about preparing for games in terms of if I wanted to go down home the day before a game, I would. Now, I never would,” he says.
“I don’t want to be in the car driving for an hour and an hour the next day. It was probably a little immature on my part, thinking I could get away with that type of thing. Maybe I did get away with it for a while.
“Eventually, as you get older, you get cuter and you think ‘I need to be as fresh as I can be’. You stop doing those things. You have to get your body in the right place.”
The changes are partly a result of Joe Schmidt’s all-encompassing demands as well as O’Brien’s growing wisdom kicking in, in terms of how best to give himself a better chance, where to find the percentages, how to live up to the coaches expectations. Or not.
One way or the other, players will suffer the consequences. O'Brien is hesitant to agree that he's a senior voice and a key player, like Paul O'Connell or Johnny Sexton.
But he has the ability to set a tone, and implement a standard that the players around him find infectious.
He embraces Schmidt’s scorched-earth policy with players, its simplicity and cold analysis. They rarely need to be reminded of their errors and even before leaving the pitch mumble their frustrated obscenities.
“Absolutely, there is a fear there that if you make a mistake you might not get a second chance,” he says of the Irish coach.
“That’s his philosophy. That’s the pressure he has on us to perform and make sure we do our role.
No excuse
“If you don’t do that, you know you’re going to get some kind of reaction from him. I think it’s good players know what’s expected. If they don’t produce that, they’ve no excuse if they’re not selected.”
That clarity has Schmidt on a podium and the players hungry for his attention. They know Wales will be different in the Aviva Stadium and from the performance of France against England they understand that danger lurks everywhere.
The French number eight Louis Picamoles caught O'Brien's eye, relentlessly hitting the gain line and more. The final pool match for Ireland in Cardiff, France may not yet have a connected power. But they have brilliance.
Respecting opponents more than fearing them, Schmidt has empowered the squad. O’Brien sees it and likes what he sees. The next match against Wales, then, would be an audition for some players?
“I think it would,” he says. “But for everybody. It doesn’t matter who you are in the squad, or what position you are, or the status you have.”
Not a bad frame of mind to win the part.
