#3. Brian O’Driscoll (2013)
While not playing in the final test was already a bitter pill to swallow, O’Driscoll revealed on The Rugby Centurions podcast on The XV that not being allowed to take part in training was particularly difficult.
“I came down on the Friday and on our whiteboard it said, ‘Non-23 are not needed at training’. I thought, ‘They don’t even want us to hold shields’. I found that very difficult.
“You just want to have the connectivity to it, and that’s the issue with Lions tours – there is a breakaway group in that final week that just want to be home.
“I wasn’t ready to be part of that, I just wanted to be part of the group that could create history and even have a small impact in getting them prepared.
“I said to Gatland a few years afterwards that I thought that was a mistake, they should have given an option to players that wanted to go training to go and be part of the collective, because in so many teams it’s those that don’t get chosen that prep the team for battle.
“I said that as captain for years and then all of a sudden I had to live it. And I couldn’t be poacher turned gamekeeper because it didn’t suit Gatland.
“I remember that being a long 48 hours before the game and just not being involved in the environment properly,”
Brian O’Driscoll facts:
- He is the fourth most-capped player in rugby union history, having played 141 test matches: 133 for Ireland (83 as captain), and 8 for the Lions
- O’Driscoll now works as a rugby analyst for BT Sport and ITV Sport in the United Kingdom.
- He is also involved in a number of business ventures including the Ultimate Rugby mobile app and Zipp, an Irish e-scooter start-up.
- O’Driscoll holds the Six Nations record for most tries scored with 26
- He was inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame on 17 November 2016