Brian O'Driscoll slams Irish arrogance and makes telling Welsh observation
Brian O'Driscoll has criticised Irish arrogance as Simon Easterby's team move closer to a third successive Championship title.
A branch of the Irish media ruffled some feathers in the lead up to Wales v Ireland last week, with Off The Ball jokingly playing with the idea that Ireland may be able to beat Wales with 12 men or even the under-20s. As it turned out, they needed the full 15 players to get the job done.
Irish confidence has been criticised more generally in the wake of their recent success and due to the cockiness of their fanbase, with Telegraph writer James Corrigan producing an article headlined: 'Irish arrogance is becoming hard to ignore'.
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Speaking as an ambassador for Guinness to RTE, O'Driscoll was asked about this arrogance, and said: "For sure, not like maybe. We're not in a good place to make a decision ourselves on how we are as a team that's going well, it's other people who will make that decision on our behalf.
"I don't see it a huge amount, but just from word of mouth, there's things that are put out on social media and conversations that don't showcase the best of us, certainly don't help our case of saying, 'no, we're humble winners’.
"So we have to be mindful of it. We've said the same about everybody else: ‘Scotland getting ahead of themselves, Wales being hard work, oh, England being arrogant’. I think we might need to internalise an awful lot of that and have a good hard look at ourselves.
"I saw the article in the Telegraph the other day [asking] are Ireland a hard team to enjoy? Are they getting ahead of themselves? I would say, the supporters, yes, the team, absolutely not."
O'Driscoll also took the opportunity to recognise just how special the atmosphere is in the Principality Stadium, following criticism of the atmosphere at the Aviva in his native Ireland. "If you think about the best atmosphere in the world, is it in the Aviva Stadium? I'd say no," he added.
"Is it, more often than not, in the Principality, I would say yes."
Interim boss Easterby helped steer Ireland to a 27-18 victory over Wales in Cardiff at the weekend, and were sternly put to the test by a rejuvenated Welsh contingent.
Ireland have what might be the championship decider against France in the next round, before facing Italy on Super Saturday. If they win the title again this year it will be the first time in the competition's history that a team has won three in a row.
