Brian O’Driscoll Reveals The Moment That Made Him Realise It’s Time To Retire

There comes a time when the legs just give out on you.

For some of us it means our illustrious five-a-side careers are over, for others it means they just can’t quite cut it an elite level anymore. For Ireland & Leinster legend Brian O’Driscoll it was the latter.

The former Lions captain was on Off The Ball last night and revealed the exact moment that made him realised it’s time to hang up the boots. Gareth Maule probably doesn’t know it, but the uncapped Welshman made the almighty BOD retire.

O’Driscoll reveals how the Scarlets player stood him up and made him look like a right arse.

I would still be playing if my legs were still going because I still have a appetite for it, but the reality is that you start doing damage to your reputation and the frustration gets too much when players that you perceive to be relatively average make you look silly.

There was one against Scarlets a few years ago. I can’t remember your man’s name, he wasn’t capped. And he stood me up on the outside and burnt me, and I got an arm on his jersey but couldn’t get him down and he went in for a score.

We won the game and we were in the dressing room after the game and I remember being absolutely sick and Joe Schmidt coming over and telling me to cop onto myself, that we’d won the game, that the players don’t need to see (O’Driscoll) down after a win.

But I was just disgusted that I had lost that (race) and I could allow that to happen.

O’Driscoll explains how he had to adapt his game in the latter stages of his career as he started to lose aspects of his game.

It (retiring) happened because I started losing aspects to my game. Particularly from an outside-back point of view, the speed aspect…I was still able to see the gaps but I just wasn’t able to get into them as quickly, so I had to become more of a link player and allow that to do my thinking for me.

And play smarter. When your legs go a little bit, and your engine isn’t quite how it once was, you have to be able to pull the handbrake up a little bit.

Here’s the incident in question . We you know you want to see it.