O’DRISCOLL: FROM LIONS TO GUNNERS TO KLOPP’S REDS

Cousin of Brian set to leave Arsenal to become Liverpool’s head of medical services

DES RYAN was in Croke Park last weekend in his role as head of sport medicine and athletic development at Arsenal’s Academy.

The Galwegian isn’t the first to have passed through Connacht rugby en route to one of the biggest clubs in world sport. Former Ireland internationals Johnny O’Connor and Jerry Flannery were former Connacht players who spent time at Colney Training Centre in the strength and conditioning department.

Cairbre Ó Cairealláin was with the Arsenal Academy and Ladies’ side before the Belfast man returned home to resume his influential roles with the GAA; once with the Limerick Academy, while he was key to the Tipp hurlers’ renaissance last year. Others have never left.

Barry Solan is first-team S&C coach at Arsenal. Paudie Roche, one of the main architects of Ireland’s fitness regime ahead of the Rugby World

Cup before moving on to the U-20s, has been at Arsenal for seven years as lead S&C coach for the U-18 and U-23 sides.

During his immensely engaging lecture on child development in sport, Ryan flashed up a photo of the “Irish mafia” at Arsenal and we noticed another familiar figure who, it seems almost certain now, will also be leaving soon.

Farewell

Gary O’Driscoll has spent longer than any of the aforementioned at the Gunners and, as such, it will presumably have proven difficult for him to contemplate bidding farewell to that familiar seat in the dug-out, just behind the manager, in which he has assumed his carefully observant position on hundreds of occasions.

Only a remarkable offer would have tempted him; then again, when it is being proffered by Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, the ease with which he soothed his reluctance reveals itself a tad more clearly.

If it has taken a breath-taking invitation for him to walk away from Arsenal, this would dove-tail neatly with the manner of his arrival there, too.

For in 2009, Arsene Wenger was as revered a figure in world football as Klopp is today.

Who else might have ever prompted him to ponder leaving the nascent Irish Grand Slam tilt under Declan Kidney only Wenger, a bidding which even a Manchester United fan couldn’t possibly refuse.

O’Driscoll was also leaving behind a rather more famous relation; his cousin, Brian, also incidentally a United fan, the man who would play a pivotal role in that remarkable rugby campaign of early 2009.

By then, Gary O’Driscoll’s life had changed forever.

It needed something significant to wrench O’Driscoll away from rugby, in general, and Ireland, in particular.

His father, Barry, was an Irish fullback, capped a handful of times in the 1970s. Latterly, he worked for World Rugby before resigning and becoming a critic of their concussion policies.

After playing with the North England schoolboys and London Hospitals, Gary linked up with the Exiles before the Irish U-21s came calling. ‘Babydoc’ would soon become an indispensable fixture in successful dressing-rooms for years to come.

Ironically, his departure coincided with the country’s greatest triumph.

“I did the first three games, then I had to make a commitment to Arsenal,” he told me in 2010.

“For that final game in Cardiff, I was sitting on the bench in Newcastle. I never saw or heard a minute of it.

“I felt totally lost, devastated. I didn’t know the score. I got back to my hotel at 2am and watched it on my own with a tear in my eye.

“It was sad, but I could picture the dressing-room, the fierce pride that would have been there. I felt I played a very small part in it. They’re friends I’ll always have.”

Under the esteemed Dr James Robson, O’Driscoll went on the 2005 and 2009 Lions tours but he was forced to witness the premature departure of his cousin from both.

O’Driscoll’s status protected him from the post-Wenger cull but ironically increased his value elsewhere; Klopp’s keen interest reflects his eminence.