The challenge was to stay in the chamber for as long as you were able to. Medics were on hand to ensure the players did not stay in for longer than was safe, monitoring their blood pressure closely. At a stretch, Brian could manage eight minutes in the chamber.
At the end of each session, Brian would feel freezing cold and would hop straight on the exercise bike, working frantically to warm himself up. In the evenings, the two would go to a nearby restaurant with their translator. On the way back, it would be pitch black and there was sheet ice everywhere. Brian became very aware of the strange noises coming from the woodlands and felt that slipping on the ice and breaking a leg or being savaged by a pack of Polish wolves would be a strange way to bow out of the Six Nations. Brian hated being in Spala and found it a grim, miserable place, and wasn’t sorry when his four-day stay was over. That said, the trip could be deemed successful. Brian was now well on the road to recovery and had lost half a stone in weight during the week.
The journey back to Warsaw airport proved even more miserable than the journey to Spala. A twin-carriaged bus slid out of control on a roundabout and Brian’s taxi driver slammed into the side of the bus with an almighty thud. Luckily, nobody was seriously hurt but it was a frightening experience for Brian and Gordon to endure.
When he got back to Dublin, Brian received a number of text messages from his team-mates asking him how the trip had gone. He sent them sarcastic replies telling them Spala was gorgeous and that he was planning a holiday there in August. Most of the squad should probably have known better since so many of them had been there at some point over the previous few years.
A few days later, The Times reported that Paul O’Connell was about to be named as captain for the summer’s Lions tour. Of course, those close to Brian knew different but it was still a closely guarded secret. Paul’s captaincy of Ireland in Brian’s absence had been well received and comparisons were regularly being made between him and Martin Johnson, as both players and personalities. Over breakfast that morning, the rest of the squad wound Paul up about the rumours, and told him to put in a good word to Sir Clive. Brian didn’t take the reports too seriously, and knew he was still on course to captain the Lions.
That same day, Brian was declared fit to start against England the following weekend, but Gordon wasn’t quite ready.
Brian didn’t take any unnecessary risks in the days leading up to the game. Come the day, he remained cautious and was still quite worried that his hamstring could give at any time. Lansdowne Road is a notoriously cold place, and Brian knew that standing around for such a long time before the whistle blew was not going to be good for him.
Preliminaries there tended to take longer than at other grounds. The players were first presented to Ireland’s President, Mary MacAleese, after which came the away team’s anthem, followed by Ireland’s two anthems. On a cold February day, this allowed more than enough time for Brian’s hamstring to play up.
The game that followed will be talked about for decades. England had lost their two previous games and Ireland were on a high. The whole squad, Brian more than most, really believed they had what it took to crush England.
An early drop goal from Ronan gave Ireland a slender advantage but England took the lead with a try by Martin Corry. This only stirred Brian up even more. He was now more determined than ever to break England down and Ireland were on the charge for much of the rest of the first half, with Brian leading by example by trying to break through the English back row time and again.
However, it was referee Jonathan Kaplan who became the centre of attention as half-time approached. Mark Cueto thought he had scored after a Charlie Hodgson cross-field kick but Kaplan ruled that he had started in front of the kicker.
England were the stronger team at the start of the second half, and a rare Irish break-out gave Ronan a chance to kick at goal, which he missed. A Charlie Hodgson drop goal extended England’s lead still further, but the tide of the game was about to change dramatically.
Ireland took control of possession and passed the ball around well. Geordan Murphy played a clever dummy on Hodgson, before passing over to Brian who touched down between the posts. Brian’s hard work had paid off and his try was well deserved.
From then on, it was Ireland all the way. Some clumsy kicking from Ronan wasn’t enough to dampen the spirits. Ireland had beaten England and had deserved to win. Several members of the English squad were less than gracious in defeat, and did their best to deflect attention away from their own shortcomings by blaming the referee for the result. Kaplan had disallowed ‘tries’ from Cueto and Josh Lewsey during the game, which, upon closer inspection, pretty much showed he had got the decision correct. If anything, Ireland were hard done by when Kaplan missed Danny Grewcock blocking Ronan on the edge of a ruck.
England coach Andy Robinson led the complaining in the post-match press conference. His team had now lost nine of their last fourteen matches under him and he knew he was under a lot of pressure.
It took several days before any member of the England squad owned up to the painful truth. Martin Corry admitted in an interview that England had ‘stuffed up’ and that the team, not the referee, were responsible for the defeat.
Brian’s heavy involvement in this physical encounter left him feeling very sore the following day, but his hamstring had survived the ordeal and after a session in the pool that afternoon he realised he was in one piece and ready to prepare for the next challenge.
Next up were France at Lansdowne Road, who had just suffered a narrow defeat to Wales, despite playing some of the most exciting attacking rugby the Championship had seen in years.
Brian managed to squeeze in a trip to Twickenham for a North v South Tsunami benefit game. Although he was nominated captain, it would have been foolish to play in the game but his presence there certainly gave the event some welcome publicity. Clive Woodward was coaching the North side and had organised a team dinner, which gave Brian a chance to get to know some of his future Lions team-mates in relaxed circumstances. Brian also had to shoot an advert for Adidas for the Lions tour. He had his reservations about doing the advert when the make-up of the final squad was far from certain, but by now a large part of him was growing to enjoy all the posing and hype these shoots provided. It certainly came as a welcome break from the City West hotel.
In the week that followed, the Grand Slam hype in the media just grew and grew. The squad, and Brian in particular, knew all along it wasn’t out of the question, but the wider public were only just starting to cotton on to how good this Ireland side really was. However, this French side were good, and Ireland were going to have to overcome them without the likes of Horgan, D’Arcy and Maggs. This was always going to be a tough game.
It wasn’t long before Brian was called upon to make his presence felt when after just two minutes he made a try-saving interception after Julien Laharrague went on the charge. A penalty kick from Ronan saw Ireland take an early lead, but France equalised with a drop goal just three minutes later.
Brian was on the receiving end of a high tackle from Yann Delaigue that gave Ronan the opportunity to restore Ireland’s lead after 18 minutes. Yet again, France levelled the scores almost immediately after Simon Easterby was caught offside. French indiscipline allowed Ronan to put his country 9–6 up after 25 minutes, but things were to go rapidly downhill from then on.
Just three minutes later, France put together a brilliant move that ended with a Christophe Dominici try, which was followed by another French try just a few minutes later after some shambolic Irish defending allowed Benoit Baby through to score, putting France 18–9 up at half-time.
Ireland restored some form of respectability early in the second half, courtesy of Ronan’s reliable kicking; however, this was cancelled out by a French penalty after 61 minutes. Ireland were down and out, but Brian wasn’t going to quit until the final whistle had been blown. With just eight minutes to play, and his side out of the game, he broke through three French tackles to score under the posts. Ronan duly converted, putting just two points between the teams, providing a nail-biting final few minutes