Jimmy O'Brien on his road to recovery and looking ahead to Leinster's Champions Cup challenge

It was another season of disappointment for Leinster when they came up short in a third successive Champions Cup final back in May. After a momentous occasion in Croke Park in the semi-final, Leinster were beaten 31-22 by Toulouse in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Eadestown’s Jimmy O’Brien felt last season’s frustration as much as anybody, having to watch from the sidelines after suffering a neck injury.

Speaking to the media at the Leinster Rugby and Kildare Village partnership launch, O’Brien said, “It was frustrating. I came back from the World Cup, played a couple of games and then got a neck injury. I basically missed the last five or six months of the season. I got back for a couple of games, but didn’t really play and didn’t get back for the final of the Champions Cup, which was annoying. I am looking forward to the new season now and putting that behind me.

“It was serious enough (the injury) at the time, which is why it took as long as it did. I would have hoped to come back sooner, but because it was my neck I couldn’t really risk it. Now everything is perfect and it is fully healed.”

O’Brien was left with more time on his hands than others following Ireland’s World Cup quarter-final heartbreak against New Zealand. However, he said that his focus was firmly fixed forward as Leinster’s season progressed without him.

He explained, “You don’t want to look too far behind and when lads are playing week in week out and playing Six Nations, you are just annoyed that you are missing that more so than looking back. I got a bit more time over the summer to look at it. It had been one of my dreams to go to a World Cup and I didn’t play much, but I got to come into the quarter-final at the end so I was pretty happy with that looking back.

“It was terrible to lose it and pretty depressing afterwards for a couple of weeks, but it makes you want to get back there and play in those high-level games.”

O’Brien wasn’t selected for the panel for Leinster’s Champions Cup final tie with Toulouse, but did make the squad for their outing in Croke Park, their semi-final clash with Northampton.

“It was unreal. That was the first week I was back in full-contact, so I wasn’t sure if I was going to get picked and put on the bench. I was delighted because I was hoping to be back maybe a month before that and I had the Croker game in the back of my head. It was always going to be really special to play there in rugby because it never happens,” O’Brien said.

“In GAA I got to play at half-time in an All-Ireland semi-final when I was 12 or something. It was Meath and Kerry in 2009, but you never get to play there in rugby so I definitely wanted to and I was delighted when I was on the bench. It was a pretty cool experience playing there with 82,000 people. It was packed, it was class.”

Such was the success of the last Croke Park rugby clash, Leinster and Munsters’ BKT United Rugby Championship game will also be held in HQ on October 12.

“You can see pictures from the last time it happened in 2009 with the fans laid out in squares of red and blue. Hopefully they do something similar again because I imagine the Munster fans will come up for that game as well,” O’Brien said.

Concentrate on own game
Injury in the rear-view mirror, it is all about the coming season for the versatile Eadestown man and re-establishing himself in the Leinster starting XV.

He explained, “There have always been so many good players in Leinster and a few good ones in every position basically, as well as young lads coming up. I just try to concentrate on my own game and get back to playing. When I am back playing then try to play well and hopefully that gets me picked for big games. That is my aim and to stay injury-free as well, that was my first big injury last year where I was out for an extended period of time.”

“I got to play a couple of URC games last year and now I have been 100% for the whole of pre-season.”

Although not concluding the way they would have liked, three finals in three years represents a presence at the top table of elite rugby and hopes of completing that one last step this time around have been renewed for O'Brien and co.