INTERVIEW: MALCOLM O'KELLY: JOHNNY WATTERSONtalks to the Leinster veteran as the province prepares to face his old team, London Irish, at the RDS in Dublin on Friday night

HE DOESN’T quite remember but it was a 24-21 win in Milan on November 1st, 1995. Ireland and rugby were on the up. Some people couldn’t remember the recession of the 1980s and others like team-mate Luke Fitzgerald, who had never known amateurism, would soon arrive on the scene. His first match in the Heineken Cup was away with Leinster all of 14 years ago and in that time he has played 13 seasons in the competition.

“What do you mean, why am I still here?” asks Malcolm O’Kelly suspiciously when his inescapable historical link is raised.

O’Kelly has grown into the elder statesman of the Leinster team reluctantly. The Heineken Cup final last May was his 69th tournament appearance, a number that would be higher if he hadn’t moved to Britain for a year with Friday night’s Heineken Cup opponents London Irish, when they were competing in the Challenge Cup. In that season he played in all six rounds with the Exiles.

“I was very young when I started,” he says. “I think I was 20. I can’t even think of who I played against first. It’s great. You get a lot of players who continue to play. It’s not unusual that you get a 35 year-old still playing.”

There is an understated stubbornness and rigour behind O’Kelly’s laid-back personality. A player who will keep going as long as he stays healthy and contributes, he is seen as unflappable, a characteristic that might appear to rub against the tough attitude and tenacious streak that keeps him a contender in the mind of the no-nonsense Michael Cheika. O’Kelly came off the bench to take part in Leinster’s 30-0 win over Munster at the RDS last weekend.

In recent times Devin Toner has emerged as a secondrow understudy and Nathan Hines has come crashing in from Scotland, while Leo Cullen is a rock and the captain. Looking back even past the senior squad members like Trevor Hogan towards the Leinster Academy, Mark Flanagan, Ciarán Ruddock and Eoin Sheriff are all hoping to line up a senior position. But Kelly, rightfully, is demanding that some one unseat him, although, the arrival of Scotland and Lions Hines has made life harder.

“He’s (Hines) a top professional,” says O’Kelly stoically. “It is a squad thing. If you are selected you are selected and if you’re not you hopefully find input somewhere. You know I don’t know what Michael (Cheika) is going to do this week so . . . it’s great to have Nathan. He’s a positive influence. He’s given everything he has and that’s all we want. If I play second fiddle to a guy of that ability and who is giving to Leinster then so be it.”

Like most of the Leinster team these days his main contact with London Irish is former Blackrock boy and current captain Bob Casey. Casey, like Geordan Murphy in Leicester, has made the most of his career in England, while O’Kelly’s time there was more of a flirtation. When the competition first kicked off in 1995 he, curiously, wasn’t living in Dublin but he was playing European rugby with Leinster.

“I was based in London at the time. It was quite a strange situation,” he explains. “In our first year we were contracted with Leinster to play European Cup. I played maybe the first six or seven matches with London Irish then Heineken Cup kicked in and London Irish weren’t involved. Then we travelled back and lived in Dublin for four or five weeks to play the Heineken Cup and then went back again to play with London Irish, which was quite a strange set-up as you were actually playing for two different teams.

“Most of my old guard have gone (from London). My main interaction with them would be through Bob Casey. There is still a couple of the management guys there but I haven’t had a chance to get back in I don’t know how many years. I’m fond of London Irish, I like to see them go well.

“They’re under great management, with the likes of Mike Catt, and they play to their strengths. I suppose it’s only fitting it comes the full circle and I have to play against my old team.”

In those early pioneering days the competition didn’t know what direction it might take but uncertainly moved forward to grow into the global brand it now is. With Irish teams there from the beginning, O’Kelly’s contribution has been immense, something the competitive athlete in him may not fully appreciate until he walks away. For now there’s another Heineken Cup campaign looming and it’s still too soon for him to start gazing back.