\u201cRugby definitely fuelled it for me,\u201d O\u2019Mahony says after a pause. \u201cIt\u2019s an aggressive and abrasive contact sport and it brings it out more. The other side was representing the team that I grew up in, be it Con [Cork Constitution], Munster or Ireland. They each meant a huge amount to me, and maybe my attitude was because I wanted to do well for the places I came from and which had given me so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his revealing and absorbing new book<\/a>, O\u2019Mahony writes of the philosophy which once prevailed at Munster. Before a European Cup game, the players were made to believe that they needed to act selfishly and harshly towards their families at home. It was the only way, they thought, to convey the magnitude of the game and their seriousness of purpose. It seems a strangely reductive approach for a great rugby institution because Munster have produced players as intelligent as Keith Wood<\/a>, Paul O\u2019Connell, Ronan O\u2019Gara<\/a>, Conor Murray and O\u2019Mahony.<\/p>\n \u201cRugby is a game of hard men,\u201d O\u2019Mahony says. \u201cThese boys were tough men, and whether it\u2019s rugby\u00a0or not, you don\u2019t let your feelings get in the way. That\u2019s the way I carried on for a long time, up\u00a0to a point where I knew I needed to change. It might have been the way I got the best out of myself but,\u00a0when you\u2019re in a team environment and you\u2019re a leader, you have to be adaptable to get the\u00a0best out of others.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter O\u2019Mahony in action for Ireland against Italy in 2022 Six Nations. Photograph: Dan Sheridan\/INPHO\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n A hard-edged game took its toll on O\u2019Mahony, who won 114 caps for Ireland. He writes movingly of how, just before his third and final World Cup in 2023, his young son Theo was bereft that O\u2019Mahony was going away again: \u201cIf you drove past me on the road to Cork, you would see the real Peter O\u2019Mahony sitting alone in his car, crying tears he didn\u2019t know he had.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Mahony still captained Ireland after that tournament but he changed his pre-game rituals for Munster. On the morning of home games he would happily supervise his three kids at a playground. \u201cWas\u00a0I missing something by not being [selfish]? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n The way he changed is illustrated best by his observations of the intriguing coaches he played under. They took the obsessive streak which characterised him to an even greater pitch of intensity. He describes all of them, with the notable exception of Andy Farrell<\/a>, as being \u201ca little bit cracked\u201d.<\/p>\n O\u2019Mahony says: \u201cI think they\u2019re all a bit mad. You have to be a bit mad to be that obsessed. If you look\u00a0at the way Andy played, and how aggressive and confrontational he was, there were times when he\u2019d\u00a0have seemed a bit cracked as well. It just wasn\u2019t something he passed on to us. Andy was able to always get things right, and communicate so well in a hugely pressured environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Farrell, who has had such success as Ireland\u2019s head coach, emerges as a compassionate, empathetic and fully rounded man who wants his players \u201cto be inquisitive and curious\u201d.<\/p>\n Joe Schmidt, for whom Farrell worked as Ireland\u2019s defence coach, transformed O\u2019Mahony and the entire Ireland team as head coach from 2013 to 2019. \u201cJoe\u00a0brainwashed us in some ways,\u201d\u00a0O\u2019Mahony says. \u201cA play would be called, and I didn\u2019t have to think about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter O\u2019Mahony says rugby used to fuel his competitive streak to the point he had to change. Photograph: Patrick Bolger\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Ireland won the Six Nations championship three times, including the grand slam in 2018<\/a>, during Schmidt\u2019s tenure. They also rose to No 1 in the world rankings but failed when it mattered most, in the World Cup, and O\u2019Mahony is refreshingly candid about the coach\u2019s limitations. Beyond doling out heavily programmed gameplans Schmidt never seemed able to communicate easily away from the rugby field. The contrast with Farrell, who is warm and funny, soon became stark.<\/p>\n Did he ever ask Farrell, who always encourages players to feel that they can be vulnerable and open, how he coped when working\u00a0for three years within Schmidt\u2019s rigid regime? \u201cNo, but I would have thought that it must have been tough for him.\u201d<\/p>\n Farrell also has a skilful and subtle way of communicating which was never matched by Warren Gatland, his predecessor as\u00a0the British & Irish Lions head coach. Gatland appointed O\u2019Mahony as the Lions captain for the second Test against New Zealand<\/a> in their drawn series in 2017, but they barely spoke to each\u00a0other. So is Farrell the best coach he played under?<\/p>\n \u201cDefinitely. I was very lucky that, at Munster, I got coached by Rassie\u00a0Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber [the South African duo who led the Springboks to successive World\u00a0Cup triumphs in 2019 and 2023]. They were obviously a world-class ticket. But I spent a lot more time with Andy and he was the best coach I ever came across.\u201d<\/p>\n
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