UNDER DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES Sean O’Brien would be in Carton House preparing for Paris.
Or failing that he might have been part of the annual exodus to the Cotswolds as the proud owner of a leading Cheltenham contender.
Instead he’s chatting to the media as an outsider looking in on a massive week for Irish rugby.
“It is different when you are not involved,” he admits. An understatement for sure.
Rehab on the shoulder injury that ruled him out of what could be a momentous Six Nations campaign is going well, O’Brien explains, and his recovery is ahead of schedule.
There were setbacks — the damage was too severe to allow for keyhole surgery and then he picked up an infection — but nothing too serious.
But if Leinster fans had any faint hope of seeing their destructive flanker back in blue during the business end of the season, or if Joe Schmidt had saved a spot on the plane to Argentina, they need not have bothered. O’Brien has no plans to play again until next season.
Meanwhile, all eyes are on Saturday and the Six Nations decider against France. How hard has it been to miss out?
“I popped in to see some of the lads every now and again and there was just a great buzz around the squad. That’s what I’m probably missing as well, being involved and having that feeling.
“The opportunity they have now is brilliant. You work hard for a couple of years trying to improve things and when days like next Saturday come, they are the ones you want to be involved in.”
Set against the backdrop of Brian O’Driscoll’s retirement the fairytale finish is within grasp. The Grand Slam dream died in Twickenham but for a country that only has one Championship win since 1986, the consolation prize isn’t half-bad.
There’s just one minor issue — Ireland’s terrible record in Paris — but O’Brien agrees that Ireland have been the best team in the tournament so far and if they continue in the same accurate manner, they can rightly believe.
“We’re playing some nice rugby. We’re physical, our breakdown is good, all the little aspects are working well.
“The team are very clear on how they want to play and what their jobs are. Hopefully this weekend it will all go well for us.
“The lads that are in there are probably used to winning, bar the England game, and the younger fellas will have especially grown in confidence.
“They shouldn’t be afraid going over to France. It was always a thing years ago where you never really wanted to go to France for your first cap or your second cap. You’d be waiting years for another one.
“I don’t think that’t the case any more. We’ve grown up a lot over the last five or six games.”
“Growing up is realising that we can be the best team,” he continues when pressed to expand. “We can be one of the superpowers of world rugby.
“Before we probably accepted at times that we would just be satisfied with competing.
“The players we have and the squad we have now, we can beat anybody. That’s what we had to realise after the All Blacks game. We should all be thinking that we should beat anybody in the world.
“It’s probably better now that we have Joe there. We’ve no excuses. We have the best coaching staff, we have the best players and the best squad we’ve ever had in the Six Nations.
“You see the replacements coming in and upping the pace of matches. You’re going to need those replacements against New Zealand and South Africa. They’ve all had it for years now. I think we’re in a way better place now.
“It’s something we all feel. I don’t think you need to talk about it. It’s a thinking that’s there and you can start to feel it build and grow the whole time.
“A lot of the younger lads, even after the All Blacks game, got confidence from that. They realised that they could do a job on these lads. That’s what I mean about growing up — realising that we can beat the best teams in the world.”
If O’Brien’s negotiations with the IRFU had taken a different turn, he might realistically be sitting here with his bags packed for the Top 14.
He’s delighted with the two-year contract extension he signed but laughs off the suggestion that he’s a homebird who could never leave the farm.
They have cows in France too, after all.
“It wouldn’t bother me to go. Everybody thinks there’s no hope of me ever going anywhere and that’s not the case.
“I manage myself and I make my own decisions. But certainly at some stage in my career, and I’ve said it before, I want to experience something different and it’s just now isn’t the right time for that.
“The player welfare programme we’ve set up here was a big factor as well. You’ve seen in France, depending on what squad you go into, mind you, you could be playing every week or you could be swapped around every week.”
As Irish eyes turn towards Cheltenham for the next four days conversation inevitably turns towards The Tullow Tank, the five-year-old multiple Grade One winner that O’Brien co-owned with his friend Paul Duffin before selling on to Barry Connell.
The horse should have been one of Ireland’s leading chances this week but Connell decided not to send the Philip Fenton-trained novice.
Does he regret the decision to sell?
“We liked him as well but we couldn’t refuse what we were offered for him at the time. That’s the way it goes.”
In horse racing, as in rugby and in life, O’Brien will take it in his stride.
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