Costello - faster, higher, stronger

Ask Victor Costello how being an Irish Olympian and an Irish rugby player compare and he says: "They don't compare." International match days carry with them far more emotional baggage.

"It's a very emotional day for everyone involved, and especially for me. On the drive, say, from Killiney Castle, or wherever we're staying, we usually pass through areas like the Rock Road where I grew up and went to school. As a youngster I used to wave at the team bus, and now I'm on that that team bus. You don't get those emotions in the Olympics.

"Athletics is a very selfish team sport," the former shot-putter ventures. "In rugby someone from Mary's or Cork Con becomes a friend for life, never mind the international guys. You don't get many friends from athletics. I have one or two friends that I would keep in touch with. That would be it."

Costello has followed a tried and tested route to becoming a contented Irish international - first they scale the heights, then they plummet the depths, and then, if they can hack it, they come back stronger, wiser and better.

He has been through the mill with the best of them but then, perhaps, that was always liable to be the case. Though an easy-going, popular and sociable fellow, aside from the unproductive home bird phase at London Irish, in the past Costello lacked the work ethic and has been a bit of a self-doubter.

It's easy to forget of course, but he's only reaching his peak now at 28, and with the experience of 18 caps behind him. A regular since the outset of last year's Five Nations, Big Vic strikes you as a more self-assured individual, who knows he belongs as a front-rank Irish international rugby player. It's better the second time around.

"Absolutely. It goes back to the time when I first played for Ireland. In my innocence I thought `this is great, this is going to last forever,' and then I went to London and we all know what happened there.

"Back in Dublin, watching the Lions on television, I felt I was miles off their standard. It gives me great pleasure that I now feel I can compete on an even plain with them." Fitter than he's ever been before and tackling better than he's ever done before, the Costello virtues have grown stronger. When it comes to picking the ball up from the base of the scrum or taking popped ruck balls, and hitting that gain line, arguably no number eight in world rugby does it better.

There's something of a horses-for-courses selection in reverting to Costello at the expense of Eric Miller this Saturday, and as Costello self-deprecatingly quips: "I don't think I'm on for my kicking abilities."

This is the one - "it's a little bit special" - that he, and all of them wanted to play in, but with a sanguine smile he accepts that there's a keen competition for back-row places at the moment. "It's going to be touch and go for the rest of the year. There's four of us there and things are going to change with injury. For the next nine months or so, the four of us are going to have to live with that."

Generally, as Costello moves gingerly from the dressing room after games, you almost wince for the punishment his body takes. He says it takes a week to recuperate from a typical, hard game.

The Springboks on tour were his hardest games yet - "they were strong men" - though the French game wasn't far behind and came with additional suffering as he watched the last half-hour from the medical room with popped rib cartilages.

"I'll never forget sitting there with Johnny Bell and the two of us in tears to lose that game, and then you walk 50 yards down to the dressing room and you actually see the rest of the team feeling the way they do. It was a very strange, strange day."

The time given to Costello's recuperation for the Welsh game, where he was accommodated on the bench, he signifies as typical of the tight-knit squad spirit. "That wouldn't have happened in the past."

By match day he was right, and happy to share in the high fives as Ireland moved 20 points clear, whereupon the lead was whittled down to six. Cue Victor. "I was happy that I got straight into it. Normally it takes a while to get into a game but because of the way things had slowed down a bit, I got the opportunity to run with the ball a few times."

Whether or not Richard Hill and Lawrence Dallaglio alternate at number eight doesn't bother him. "Neil Back is the one I have to look at. He's a very strong tackler in so much as he goes for the ankles rather than the upper body tackles, which in some cases is the right thing to do."

Costello's emotional baggage on match day doesn't end with the bus journey. His private coach, his mentor and his late father, Paddy, were all one and the same. The week after he passed away last season, Victor did what Paddy would have wanted - he won the man of the match award.

Victor Costello: better second time around.