Peter O’Mahony: The ‘Life And Soul’ Of Ireland, Set For 100th Cap

• Ireland v Scotland: Peter O’Mahony, the ‘life and soul’ of Ireland, set for 100th cap.

Brian O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara, Cian Healy, Rory Best, Johnny Sexton, Conor Murray, Paul O’Connell, John Hayes, Keith Earls.

Peter O’Mahony will be keeping lofty company when he joins Ireland’s list of centurions on Saturday.

This week, he has been showered with glowing testimonies from his peers. He’s the “life and soul of the group”, a “leader”.

But O’Mahony is not one to read too much into such adulatory titles.

Humble to the point of self-deprecation, he wrestles with the idea of being mentioned in the same breath as the Irish rugby fellowship he will join when he strides out on to the Stade de France pitch to face Scotland.

“It’s almost a little bit embarrassing with the names that are ahead of me, to be honest,” the Munster flanker said before Ireland’s crunch Pool B match with the Scots.

“People I grew up following and supporting, hugely inspirational characters. To be the 10th, it’s going to take some time to settle in.

“It’s certainly nothing I ever expected or dreamed of. We all talk about having dreams but that one was way off the radar, to be honest.”

But that is the thing. To everyone else, O’Mahony has always appeared destined for a place in Irish rugby folklore. He was an Ireland and Munster captain by 23, and a Lions captain at 28.

He has been a rock in the Irish back row for well over a decade, a hard-tackling, chest-thumping hero to the fans. He is adored by fans, respected by team-mates and feared by opponents. He does, however, have one of the more peculiar nicknames in sport: the ‘Haggard Badger’, according to Iain Henderson.

When Irish rugby fans think of O’Mahony, they think of him giving his Grand Slam medal to Jennifer Malone, a passionate Ireland fan who was born with Down’s syndrome.

They think of him jumping for joy at Tadhg Beirne’s turnover against the All Blacks in 2021 in Dublin.

They think of him weeping in Wellington less than a year later, when the significance of Ireland’s series win in New Zealand hit home like a hammer. More recently, they think of him singing along to ‘Zombie’ after beating South Africa a fortnight ago, again the emotion etched on his face.

“We could sit here all day and talk about what he brings and means to us all, what type of bloke he is, the family man he is,” Ireland head coach Andy Farrell said of the 34-year-old.

“He’s selfless. You guys see his performances on the pitch and what it means for him to play for Ireland but behind the scenes, he is definitely, 100%, the best I have ever seen at making the dressing room feel right.

“It is him being himself because he’s genuine. There’s no better man you’d want sat alongside you than Peter O’Mahony.”

There was a time, of course, when O’Mahony was required more off the bench than from the start.

He had some bad injuries. His Test career could have easily dissipated, but he remains a vital cog in this green juggernaut and has enjoyed a remarkable year, from winning a second Grand Slam with Ireland to captaining Munster to the United Rugby Championship title.

Typically, when asked to outline the factors driving his impressive form, he chose to praise others: “I think it’s the players predominantly. Players and coaches, the standard of training is of a level that you can’t but learn from and get better.

“Our coaches are opening our eyes up to our potential. Not that you put a ceiling on yourself but it’s stuff that you mightn’t have had on your radar that was possible. I think this group of players never ceases to amaze me, the quality of rugby they can play.

“When you’re around it as much as I’ve been lucky to be around it, without doing much you’re picking up stuff and we’re about doing a lot, so it’s easy to pick up some good tips.”

‘Axel’s always in my head’

When he faced the media on Thursday afternoon, O’Mahony said he was trying to park the emotions of the week, taking a leaf out of his long-time Munster team-mate Keith Earls’ book, who became a centurion just last month.

But O’Mahony still eloquently paid tribute to those who have helped him along the way, with Anthony ‘Axel’ Foley, his former Munster head coach who died suddenly in Paris in 2016, uppermost in his thoughts.

“Myself and Johnny [Sexton] had a conversation about it [Foley], I think it was on the way to the South Africa game about sometimes it’s weird to be in Paris and think about Axel and what happened,” recalled O’Mahony.

“It’s obviously an incredibly sad memory for that Munster team that were in Paris that week. Johnny made a couple of lovely gestures to the family afterwards, but Axel’s always somebody that’s in my head on a very regular basis.

“When you come to Paris, he’d certainly come to mind of the fondest memories we had together and the amount of inspiration he gave to not just me but a lot of young kids in Munster and Ireland, as I said very fond memories.”