BRIAN O’DRISCOLL IS expected to captain the Lions in his final Test match for the team and believes there series against Australia is still there for the taking.
The Irish centre took time out from his post-match recovery day, on Sunday, to chat to Jonathan Davies for Lions Weekly. O’Driscoll told ‘Jiffy’ that he is desperate to avoid a repeat of the 2001 tour Down Under when the Lions took a 1-0 lead before losing the final two Test matches.
He declared, “We haven’t played well yet, we’ve defended reasonably well, albeit we did let them in for a seven pointer in the last few minutes [on Saturday] but we’ve shown nothing, we’ve put phases together, we’ve been a bit blunt in our attack, we need to change all that if we’re going to put in a performance that deserves a victory.”
O’Driscoll added, “I understand the nuances of Lions tours now and this week in particular is a re-run of 2001, you’re down a little bit after the second test but you can’t afford to be down for long, you have to realise there is one more huge opportunity that lies ahead of you.
I think we can win, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever. We just need to tweak a few things and we need to bring that level of physicality to our game that maybe was lacking a bit [in Melbourne].”
You can watch the full O’Driscoll interview [from 7:40] here, as well as insights from former Lions Gavin Hastings and Jason Robinson:
YouTube credit: HSBC
