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With the weekend that was in it, one man was always going to feature very prominently in our favourite Six Nations moment of the weekend.
In his final ever home international for Ireland, there was always a chance that the powers that be would look to give the man of the match gong to Brian O’Driscoll at the Aviva on Saturday to round off a special day for a man whose like we might not see again in a green jersey.
But despite the great man’s protestations that it should possibly have gone to two-try Jonathan Sexton in his emotional post-match speech – the tears JOE shed at the time were entirely down to the onions we had cooking in the kitchen at the time – O’Driscoll fully merited the award after a performance that included glimpses of all the qualities that have made him into the player he is.
The highlights of his own personal display were three moments of real class that will earn pride of place on the lengthy highlights reel from his career to date, with all three leading to Irish tries on what was a pretty perfect day all round for O’Driscoll and for Joe Schmidt’s side.
It was a tough call to overlook the brilliant dummy and improvised pass to Andrew Trimble for Ireland’s second try and the ridiculous one-handed offload in the lead up to Sexton’s second touchdown, but we’ve opted for the brilliantly subtle pass to Sexton early doors that enabled his once Leinster team-mate to complete the wraparound move and run through under the posts to put Ireland ahead.
An orchestrated training ground move that worked to perfection, the clip above is 60 seconds of pure magic, spoiled only slightly by the unintentional collision between Sexton and Italy’s Leonardo Sarto behind the goals.
Even though it was Sexton on the scoresheet, however, for the day that was in it, this moment was all about BOD and an illustration of exactly the type of thing that we’re going to *sniff* miss dearly *sniff* when he’s gone.
Excuse us but there’s something in our eye, must be those damn onions again.
Video via YouTube/RBS 6 Nations
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