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News article – Style E 4288

News article – Style E 4288

Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll, having shaken off his hamstring injury ahead of Sunday’s vital RBS Six Nations clash with England, is looking forward to getting back into the thick of things.

Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll, having shaken off his hamstring injury ahead of Sunday’s vital RBS Six Nations clash with England, is looking forward to getting back into the thick of things.

The 26-year-old Leinster centre missed out on the 40-13 win over Scotland at Murrayfield, and following a week rehabilitating in Poland, he admitted: “The will to play in this game is enormous.

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“I feel good. I came through today’s session – with full-contact, so there’s no reason for any late fitness tests,” said O’Driscoll – who is now joint-top Irish try scorer (25) with Leinster team mate Denis Hickie – following the latter’s effort against the Scots.

“You always want to play in the big games and it doesn’t come much bigger than England at home. With them losing their first two and us winning our games, it has teed it up nicely.

“I assured myself I was going to give myself every chance of playing by working really, really hard in rehab. Barring any mishaps – it has paid off,” he added.

Following his rehabilitation at Cryotherapy centre in Spala, the Dubliner went to lengths to explain the process in which he and midfield colleague Gordon D’Arcy – an absentee for Sunday – went to to reocover their fitness.

“The cryotherapy doesn’t speed up the recovery process as such, but it does allow you to do more training in a day than you would otherwise be able to do.

“We trained after breakfast and then had a cryotherapy session before lunch. Basically what happens is that you go into a chamber where they have got the temperature down to minus 135 degrees.

“You go in wearing knee-high socks, shorts, gloves, head-bands and a mask. You are in there for 3-and-a-half minutes. It’s a long time – believe me.

“You come out and you have to heat your body up again for 10 minutes. What we did was do our fitness session right after that, so we killed two birds with one stone,” he continued.

“After lunch, we’d do some more weights or more track work, followed by another cryotherapy session in the evening. It was intense and it worked a treat.”

Set to captain his country for the 20th time, O’Driscoll added on the subject of this weekend’s opponents: “I don’t think I’ve ever played particularly well against England.

“The first year I wasn’t bad but last year I think it would be an understatement to say it wasn’t my finest hour – but I’d settle for another poor game if it meant we were going to get a similar result on Sunday.”

The record books show O’Driscoll – set for his 57th cap – has yet to score any points in five outings against the men-in-white, but there might not be a better time than this weekend.