HEINEKEN CUP FINAL:Leinster centre Gordon D'Arcy tells GERRY THORNLEYthat to get to where they are today required learning from their 'crisis of confidence, crisis of character', among the squad and individually

MEETING IN a café in Donnybrook, you are still struck by his size and you wonder again how on earth this 5ft 11ins, 93kg centre – a pocket rocket if ever there was one – has punched above his weight in the midfield traffic for the last eight seasons against all those behemoths. Mind you, he also looks as fit as a flea, still at the peak of his powers despite this being his 13th season as a professional with Leinster.

On the eve of their second European Cup final, if ever an individual’s career defined Leinster it’s arguably Gordon D’Arcy’s, which has been more of a rollercoaster than most. He turns his right forearm around to show the two long scars which are an ever-present reminder of the thrice operated fractured arm which sidelined him for virtually all of 2008.

Prior to the third operation he was warned it would be the last, one way or the other, and tells of how his agent, Fintan Drury, helped prepare him for “the transition from rugby to the real world, from Narnia to the real world!”

That transition was potentially four weeks away. He returned to college, is just about to complete a degree in arts and economics, and is now fairly sanguine if it all ends when his current contract, until the summer of 2012, expires. He already owns the Exchequer Bar with two of his many friends from his Clongowes years, Peter Rock and Ian Tucker, and has a range of post-rugby ideas. Maybe opening a café with an emphasis on healthy foods, or specialising in economics/business.

His girlfriend sometimes slags him about the early-morning breakfasts before training, the lost social weekends, but he still loves playing games, less so the gym. He also only has to look at those scars to made him appreciate every game.

His first game back was against Ulster and what he calls a watershed moment. Stephen Ferris, of all people, was the first player to run at him. “I made the tackle, on my arm. I gave it everything.”

The moment passed. No pain. “I felt like clicking the heels.”

He reflects on when it all started and is a little incredulous as to how amateur it all was.

“We did weights and we did things like that but we were amateur. We still had an amateur ethos and an amateur mentality. We didn’t have that steely edge.”

To get to where Leinster are today required learning from their “crisis of confidence, crisis of character, among the whole squad and individually” along the way, prompting him to describe it as “a labour of love”.

“You’ve got to fail as well. Nobody is going to show up on the job without having learned a couple of lessons along the way. I have no doubt in my mind you are going to see Rory McIlroy as a major winner in the next 12 months. There is no way that guy is not going to come back from it.”

One comment by Shane Byrne back in the early days stands out as much as any other. “He just said to me ‘you know there’s more to being a professional than getting paid’, and it took me ages to figure out what that meant,” he admits with a self-deprecating smile.

After the Mike Ruddock/Matt Wiliams/Alan Gaffney years, their departures led to a rocky period until Michael Cheika became their fourth coach in four years.

“Cheiks was a phenomenal businessman and he’s a phenomenal coach as well. He turned Leinster around in four years and gave us a dynamic physical pack to go with this back line.”

He cites the development of a squad of 17/18 frontline players to one of 25/26, and particularly the signing of Rocky Elsom.

“I’ll be honest with you, I knew Rocky was a good player. I played against him, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an individual have an impact on a competition as big as that.”

The magnitude of this game is hard to comprehend, but to think that it’s only Leinster’s second Heineken Cup final since his debut 13 seasons ago puts it in perspective. The memory of two years ago doesn’t help; nor does he want it to. “I’m in a very strange place at the moment because I’m trying to focus on this as a game. I was talking to Shaggy (Shane Horgan) and he’s like, ‘I’m waking up early and I’m so giddy about this’. I just don’t want that. I don’t want to be looking at this as a final because I don’t want to out-psyche myself and I don’t want to stop playing. If I look at the win I won’t be concentrating on the bits in the middle which are the most important bits.”

Hence, he says half-jokingly, this interview isn’t helping. Akin to a student at exam time, this season D’Arcy has only become nervous if he feels he hasn’t prepared enough and has benefited from working with the sports psychologist Enda McNulty. D’Arcy also works with a dietician, Andrea Cullen, in Limerick and prefers loading up on food the day before rather than make himself tired and sleepy on the day. He’ll put together some music on his iPod but doesn’t like having a match-day routine in case it goes off kilter in any way.

“It’s a long day, but it’s grand. I’ve a room with Isa (Nacewa) so we’ll get a kip. It’s a match made in heaven. We’ll get over to Wales, Mike Ross will have a video ready for Friday evening, watch a DVD, Isa and I will just be lights out, at 10/half 10, sleep through till maybe nine, bit of breakfast and then another sleep and then start getting ready for the match.”

Older and wiser now than the cheeky chappy of his earlier years, he’s still an immensely likeable, engaging and thoughtful young man. But for his parents, Peggy and John, sending him to Clongowes he would most probably have remained a hurler rather than ever taking up rugby, and along with his parents his alma mater gave him the core values which shaped him for ever more even if, he admits, the seeds they sowed flowered later in him than others.

“From the word go my parents just taught me to be respectful of other people and other people’s lives, and be tolerant of other people as well. I suppose the thing Clongowes gives you is the confidence to succeed. For me it was the rugby, I was very shy academically, but I still worked hard and my confidence did manifest itself academically years later.

“There’s something in the Jesuit influence in Clongowes, whether you like Clongowes or hate Clongowes, it’s like a stamp on you. You have a certain way of being courteous and I think it just opens you to being more open-minded, more respectful, more thoughtful for other people and not always for yourself. A lot of people want to be house leaders, be in charge of other groups; there’d be a lot of having to tidy up after others. It’s hard to tangibly quantify.”

In tandem with this is his largely unheralded work for Barretstown, the Paul Newman-inspired home for ill children, and third-world charity GOAL. The latter was at the instigation (insistence?) of John O’Shea, and spiralled after a visit to Calcutta. “You talk about appreciation . . . I remember going out there and I used to think ‘I want this and I want’ and then I came back and I’m going ‘thank God I have this and I have that!’ It recalled how Fr Michael Shiel regularly reminded him that he was a role model.

“No ‘screw that’, I thought. ‘I don’t want to be a role model’. Typical teenage boy. But we are role models as professional athletes. That’s one of the reasons why I really like GOAL and it gave me the opportunity to do something like that and then Barretstown again. They don’t get an awful lot, if any, government funding so fund raising is massive.”

He hates saying no to other worthy causes and charities, but reasons it would only dilute whatever worth he can give to GOAL and Barretstown.

Older, wiser, more sanguine and perhaps more at ease with himself now too, though he never did really regret what he describes as the wasted years, circa 1999 to 2002, between his first and second Irish caps, though there is one regret. When Brian O’Driscoll was injured against Sale in December 2003, for the return a week later, at the suggestion of Willie Anderson, Gary Ella moved D’Arcy from wing to centre. Eddie O’Sullivan then picked D’Arcy at 13 in the Six Nations opener away to France, and when O’Driscoll returned a week later against Wales, O’Sullivan permed the two together.

“I just wish it had been done earlier,” he says. “I feel I actually have a good grasp of centre now but like that’s six years later.”

Although initially he played outside O’Driscoll, soon their attributes, he says, defined their roles. O’Driscoll had that outside break, D’Arcy’s fast shoe shuffle and surge in contact with the heavier traffic. Against England they equalled the Test record of Will Carling and Jeremy Guscott of 45 Tests together.

“I’ve always liked playing with him. It’s got to the stage where you don’t have to talk as much because you know what he’s going to do. You’ve got a view of him in your peripheral vision and I know from what he’s doing what he’s going to do and vice versa; hands, distribution wise, everything like that. It’s a little bit like second nature at this stage.”

His status as a Leinster legend from the golden generation is assured, but while team-mates have talked about winning a second Heineken Cup as part of leaving a legacy, for D’Arcy it’s not about that. “It is about being greedy and getting another trophy, another winner’s medal. Unfortunately success is dictated by trophies, we could have the biggest fan base, we could have a lovely revenue, we could have everything, we could win all our home games and then not have any trophies . . . what’s that worth? I’d much prefer be a pauper with two trophies.”