A longer route needed to get to the centre of things

Ordering lunch on Wednesday in Wilde & Green in Milltown with Gordon D’Arcy turns out to be an education. He’s become quite assiduous about his diet over the years, more than most in fact, which demonstrates how much he has changed.

Yet while he shares some of Brian O'Driscoll's regrets about not being more professional in his early years, he is not beating himself up about it either. Leinster was not the professional environment it is now when D'Arcy started off in 1999.

“When you think of it we were kids as well, and kids need boundaries, and structures, and control, and everything like that. Not that it wasn’t there, but it wasn’t there to the extent that it is now.

"You kind of test the water a little bit and then you don't get punished. It's like 'okay, this is the norm' for a few years, and then Matty [Williams] comes in and says: 'No, this is not the norm. This is the new norm.' And then that is built up again with [Michael] Cheika and then again with Joe. It's a natural progression, and I kind of look at it a little bit more holistically. I've had a few more deviations than most players, and they obviously affected my rugby career but I'm a pretty happy well-adjusted guy, and I look at those as stuff that built my character and personality."

Happens for a reason
Those deviations may even have contributed to his longevity, and, he adds, "that early wilderness period, between 1999 and 2003, makes me go 'yikes' but if I had been playing I would have been playing as a winger and '15', and would I be keeping Rob Kearney out of the team, or Luke Fitzgerald? Probably not. So everything happens for a reason and my calling was centre, and I had to take a longer route to get there."

More professional
He admits he has since "found my way", adding: "I've a great job, but I'm really happy outside of my job. I'm more professional now than I ever was but I've got a really good other side to my life." This includes his wife Aoife Cogan, their Burmese mountain dog, Wilson, his old school friends and his "lifelong friends from rugby", the vast majority of whom have now retired. "Mal O'Kelly's son is my godchild," he notes as an example, and reels off names like Liam Toland, Aidan McCullen, John McWeeney and David Quinlan, amongst a host of others, up to new team-mates in his journey from "cheeky young brat" to "geriatric", as he puts it.

He keeps himself busy too. He has one final exam in UCD in his economics degree this summer, has opened a Pilates school with Aoife (Formschool, just off Merrion Square), owns the Exchequer pub with a couple of mates from school, and with whom he will soon open the Exchequer Wine Bar in Ranelagh. An active charity worker, he also gives as much of his time as he can to Barretstown. “It’s really humbling whenever I meet a sick kid and it’s nice when you show up for a photo and the fuss is actually about a child. There is real life outside my little bubble and people have real life problems. It really does put your life in check, and some small or trivial problem you may have really isn’t that big.”

His happiness and contentment in his day job is also a huge contributory factor in him playing so well this season. “I really enjoy playing with Leinster at the moment and enjoy Matty as a person and a coach, and I absolutely enjoy playing with Joe. I know as soon as Joe took the job that if I got any chances I would earn them, and he does facilitate you being able to play well.”

He's always been running into traffic with that wondrous footwork of his, generating medium to fast ball, playing to his strengths and increasingly punching above his weight, with the emergence of Luke Marshall, he admits, bringing out the best in both of them. "One day Luke will hit that accelerator and I won't be able to stay with him." Understandably, O'Driscoll has been attracting the hoopla lately, but today's game will also mark their world record 56th Test together in midfield (35 wins, one draw and 19 losses), as well as being their last. Their first Test together was in the second game of the 2004 Six Nations at home to Wales.

“It’s the end of an era for him and for us as a pair. I haven’t really thought about it a huge amount because I’m so used to seeing him there every day. He’s usually just sitting there in the changing room with a big smug grin on his head when he has figured out something that I didn’t want him to figure out.” D’Arcy smiles himself thinking about it and admits: “It’s usually an uncomfortable day for me.”

His mate and sidekick will, D’Arcy admits, leave a huge void and playing with someone else will be like trying on a new pair of shoes. “I probably won’t fully appreciate it [their partnership] until it’s gone, that safety we’ve both talked about when you’re playing with someone so long, that innate sense of trust. It happened very quickly for us. A couple of games, I’d say, it was as good then as it is now.”

They’ve each grown into the more mature Thirtysomethings they’ve become, but remain similar characters with a healthy if often silent competitiveness and, he adds: “You’d be hard pushed not to be friends with somebody you’ve played rugby with, and against, since we were 15 or 16, when we were in Clongowes and Rock. Yea, we’re definitely good friends and our wives are good pals as well.”

With O'Driscoll and other leaders in the team, D'Arcy rarely feels compelled to add his tuppenceworth, nor any more in the build-up to this game just because he is one of the six survivors from the 2009 Grand Slam.

Influence people
"There was a point about five or six years ago when I decided that the best way I can influence people is by playing well. I do make my points when they're needed, but we've got Paulie, Brian, Sexto and Rory Best. What am I really going to add that they haven't said already? So what can I bring? I can bring my best performance of the championship. Can I play better than I did against New Zealand? Can I have my best game ever in a green jersey? And that might inspire others."

That would also help to achieve what he most wants. “Those changing rooms when the team wins are magical, and they’re the bits you play rugby for. You don’t do it for man of the match or player of the tournament, or stuff like that.”

As Matt Williams has written in these pages, D'Arcy has had unfair flak, and will only be fully appreciated when he is gone. When D'Arcy was hitting 30 he thought he'd only have a year or two left, not least as that union contract was so hard fought he didn't think he'd be wanted much longer. But he's just signed a new one-year deal up to June 2015 and wants to play in the World Cup.

All in all, D’Arcy’s game and his life are in a good place. If there is to be a new contract, it will be his last and it will not, he says, be a difficult negotiation, rather a simple yea or nay. In the interim, there’s more to achieve, not least today. Time was when Triple Crowns were cherished, he says, but now admits: “Keep your Triple Crown any day of the week and give me a Championship crown, or even a shot at the title. If we play our best game and don’t win, I can live with that. I’ve never been afraid to fail, or have a go, and this is no different.”