In the professional era, matches come thick and fast and there is little time to dwell on defeats or revel in victories. Within a week, Brian would be meeting up with the Ireland squad as they prepared for their Six Nations campaign. On 21 January, just two days before the squad was due to meet, Brian should have been celebrating his 26th birthday. Instead, he opted for a quiet day, knowing that this really wasn’t the time for a night’s boozing with mates. If he and Ireland were serious about completing the Grand Slam, they had to be in the peak of physical fitness, and this meant making sacrifices early on.
Brian enjoyed playing with an iPod given to him by O2, one of Ireland’s sponsors, before heading to the barber’s to cut off the blond locks he had been sporting in favour of a short-back-and-sides look. A serious haircut for a serious man. There was no clowning around now, and Brian used this small gesture as a statement of intent for the challenges that lay ahead.
Two days later, and Brian joined the Ireland squad at the City West hotel in Dublin. This would be his base until the end of the Six Nations.
From now on, each day’s activities would run to a strict schedule. Essentially this meant a daily ritual of eating, training and sleeping. As usual, Brian did not enjoy the prospect of having to be away from home for such a long period of time. The novelty of having everything laid on for him never took long to wear off. He felt the daily training ritual was not especially different to that he underwent at home and he much preferred to be around those closest to him, especially with such a long build-up to the first game of the Six Nations.
Brian has gone on record as saying that he doesn’t necessarily believe that spending long periods together as a squad is the best way to prepare for a game. He points out that in the 1970s international sides put together breathtaking performances on the back of a maximum of just two days together.
It’s easy to see where he’s coming from, but in the professional era few would argue that the highest levels of fitness and the correct diet are essential in preparing for big games and that joining together as a squad early on plays an important part in getting this right. They might not enjoy being away from those closest to them for so long, but it is a fact of life for the modern international rugby player.
Brian’s left-shoulder injury, sustained early in his career, soon came back to haunt him in the days that followed and he wasn’t able to train as rigorously as he would have liked. After each training session, he would apply an electro-magnetic TENS pain-relief gadget to his shoulder to alleviate the persistent problem. This was far from ideal preparation for the tournament.
Brian was the first to put his problems into perspective. Irritating though this was, it was nothing compared to those suffering the effects of the Tsunami disaster just a few weeks earlier, and watching the terrible pictures of the aftermath from his hotel room helped him realise this.
Being captain, and being the biggest ‘celebrity’ in the squad, meant Brian had to do more than his fair share of media work in the lead-up to the tournament. He has never been a natural extrovert and shyness was a problem early on in his career, with his personality never coming across on television. Things had improved as he grew into the captaincy, and by now Brian’s approach to interviews was every bit as professional as his approach to other aspects of being a rugby player.
On the day of the Six Nations press launch, Brian had to make himself available for a number of interviews with journalists from various organisations from around the world. This in itself proved something of a challenge. He was expected to treat each interview with the seriousness of the last one. In all likelihood, this meant being asked exactly the same questions as before, which meant having to give exactly the same answers.
Brian always stuck to the official party line, never speaking out of turn. He knew full well that making one light-hearted comment or poking a bit of fun at the opposition could easily be taken out of context and backfire on him spectacularly, which was exactly what had happened to him the previous year.
In an interview before the Ireland–England game, Brian had made a comment along the lines that an Ireland win would give the prawn-sandwich brigade at Twickenham something to choke on.
Of course, the Celtic nations love nothing more than winding up the ‘posh boys’ of England and his remarks went down well back home. Brian was simply parodying comments made by Roy Keane about Manchester United’s corporate ‘supporters’ some years previously. But his rather lame attempt at humour certainly seemed to psych up his opponents. Lawrence Dallaglio seemed to take it very personally and appeared more angry than usual as he took to the field that day. The remark was blown out of all proportion but it certainly seemed to stick and speculation was rife that it had done serious damage to Brian’s relationship with Sir Clive Woodward.
In the context of those remarks, it came as a huge surprise to Brian when, in the middle of his preparations for the Six Nations, he received a phone call from Clive inviting him to his home in Henley for a chat about the upcoming Lions tour. Brian had no idea what this could mean. Yes, the press had grossly exaggerated the extent of his rift with Clive but he could hardly be described as one of his closest confidants.
Not knowing what to expect, Brian took a flight to Heathrow where Clive picked him up at Arrivals and drove him to his sublime home. The whole evening turned out to be a very relaxed and friendly occasion. The two men just talked frankly about the upcoming Lions tour, with Clive appearing to take a keen interest in which players Brian rated. The alleged falling out of 12 months previously suddenly felt like a million years ago. Then the true purpose of the meeting was revealed.
Clive asked Brian how he felt about captaining the Lions. It was phrased as a hypothetical question rather than an offer, but Brian knew exactly what this meant. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck, and, as he put it, his whole rugby career flashed before him. To captain the Lions is almost certainly the greatest honour any rugby player from Britain or Ireland could ever receive, and now it was practically being offered on a plate to Brian. He answered the question with an enthusiastic ‘Yes’ before going on to say that he was a big believer in the Martin Johnson style of captaincy, but he wasn’t looking to be a clone of him.
The rest of the evening was spent discussing a strategy for the tour. Both men agreed that the tour of New Zealand should be fun. They both knew full well that many players didn’t enjoy the 2001 Lions tour of Australia. This was partly due to a large number of players being marginalised in the midweek side early on. Both men agreed that back then the Lions simply needed more back-room staff to do the job properly. Clive agreed to set up two different teams of coaches and medics. There was obviously no way every member of the squad could play in the Test team, but making every player feel valued and properly supported was vital in making for a happy, coherent squad.
With more emphasis on fun, Clive made sure the tour allowed time to absorb the country and the culture, as well as allowing for a few decent nights out. This didn’t have to mean heavy drinking sessions, but it did mean avoiding a siege mentality within the camp. They were away from home for a long time, and making the tour an enjoyable experience was now considered an important aspect of making it a success on the field. After all, if they were playing a series of matches at home with that length of gap in between, there would certainly be space made for some ‘down time’.
At the end of their meeting, Clive made it clear that he would not be making any final decision on the captaincy until after the Six Nations. But Brian was aware that it was now his to lose, and that, if he remained professional in his leadership of Ireland, the job would be his.
The following day saw the official media launch of the Six Nations in London. Brian was growing sick and tired of constant interviews, press gatherings and posing for pictures by now. The build-up seemed never ending but this was just something he had to learn to put up with. It came as part of the job and that was that.
Brian nevertheless coped well with the many interviews he had to do, until about halfway through the day when he got bored with repeating the same old lines to one journalist after another and decided to say something that would stir up a degree of controversy.
He