O’Brien: Triple Crown A Great Start On Team’s Journey Towards World Cup

O’Brien’s injury woes – his ACL injury in 2022 the most significant one of a catalogue that has included knee, ankle, and hamstring problems – have thankfully been consigned to the past with him already playing 15 times this season, the cherry on top being his first taste of Six Nations action.

The Dublin-born winger was one of eleven Championship debutants in green these last few weeks. He made two starts against eventual champions France and Scotland, as well as being an early injury replacement in the record away win over England.

His snappily-finished final quarter brace on ‘Super Saturday’ took his Six Nations haul to three tries. Admittedly ‘delighted to get on the end of the last two and put the game away’, his involvement in the Triple Crown-clinching result clearly meant a lot to him.

“I think it has to be the highlight,” he said afterwards. “That was my Six Nations debut at home. I made my Six Nations debut against France, which obviously didn’t go the way we wanted, but to have the rest of the tournament to build and finish on a high is pretty special.

“Yeah, (missing the game against Wales added motivation), it did for sure. Obviously, any chance you get to wear the Irish jersey, you want it.

“I was disappointed to miss out last week, but it’s the nature of this squad that there’s such strength in depth. I think it’s something we’ve done really well this Six Nations.

“A lot of guys have put their hand up that maybe wouldn’t have been seen as frontline players, like Tom O’Toole switching sides (as a prop), has been unbelievable for us. Jeremy Loughman as well, there’s loads of guys.

“So, we just talked about how important that is to get exposure to these important games for the whole squad.”

This time last year O’Brien, following a run-out in an ‘A’ international against England ‘A’, was brought in to train with the Ireland senior squad, towards the end of the 2025 Six Nations.

He finished his season with Leinster as a BKT United Rugby Championship winner, and with four starts across the knockout stages of the Investec Champions Cup and the URC. He then made his Test breakthrough, running in four tries during the summer tour victories over Georgia and Portugal.

The 27-year-old was always quietly confident that an injury-free run, amid an extended period of games, would convince the national coaches that he deserved his chance. He gained further experience in November, being ever-present on the right wing and also touching down against Japan.

Now with a full Six Nations Championship under his belt which garnered a Triple Crown, and an impressive tally of eight tries in nine Tests, these latest achievements owe much to his perservance and diligence with his injury rehabilitation and training habits, making sure that his body can stand up to the rigours of the highest levels of rugby.

“There were definitely times where I doubted was it going to happen. I always had belief in my ability, it was just a case of if my body would play ball.

“So, thankfully for the last year-and-a-half, I’ve managed to keep it in good nick and get a run. It’s such an important thing in rugby, getting a run of games.

“You get a bit of confidence, you get a bit of exposure, and thankfully I’ve got a good result out of it today.”

Expanding on how grateful he is to be in this position after such a frustration time with injuries, he continued: “I think it’s something I try to say to myself when I’m running out every time in the tunnel.

“Just kind of saying, ‘This is what you dreamed of, this is what all those hard days of rehabbing on your own, this is what it’s all for, and this is what makes it all worth it’.”

O’Brien was keen to credit the creators of his two tries against the Scots – Ciarán Frawley, his Leinster team-mate, and Stuart McCloskey. His free-flowing 67th-minute score came at a crucial stage, cancelling out a Rory Darge effort that had closed the gap to 26-21.

By the time that a last-minute Scottish attack had broken down with their captain Sione Tuipulotu knocking on, McCloskey swiftly gobbled up the ball and supplied another highlight-reel offload for O’Brien to race clear and score from the visitors’ 10-metre line.

The scorer himself agreed: “It was an awesome way to finish. I think everyone was pretty much out on their feet, but it’s kind of a testament to the group that that’s how we wanted to finish on a high.

“We kind of had the result sorted, but no one wanted to finish by conceding a try and I think that’s a pretty big statement to the group.

“Big Stu has a serious offloading game, and Frawls is the exact same. So once they get the ball in their hands, I’m just looking to run good support lines off them.”

Hugo Keenan, Mack Hansen, and James Lowe were Ireland’s Grand Slam-winning back-three in 2023 – retaining the starting jerseys for the full five rounds – and have been the first-choice trio more often than not over the past few years.

However, Keenan and Hansen both missed this year’s Six Nations through injury, while a groin issue curtailed Lowe’s involvement to only 98 minutes. Up stepped Jamie Osborne to deputise for Keenan at full-back, and he went on to have a terrific tournament, scoring four tries in five starts.

Jacob Stockdale, Lowe, and Six Nations newcomers O’Brien and Robert Baloucoune were the wing options utilised by Andy Farrell during the 2026 Championship. The pace of O’Brien and Baloucoune came to the fore with three tries each, with the Ulster speedster winning the BKT Rising Player award.

Osborne, Baloucoune, and O’Brien, who only had 20 caps between them coming into the tournament, got over an hour together in the back-three against England – owing to Lowe’s early injury-enforced departure – and made their first start together in the crunch clash with Scotland.

They may have lacked experience as an international combination in the back-field, but more than made up for that with their impact on Saturday, particularly in attack as they all got on the scoresheet, racking up four tries in all, made four line breaks and carried for a total of 156.1 metres.

Speaking about how the trio prepared together to get the best out of the new-look back-three, O’Brien explained: “We had a lot of conversations throughout the week. We’d make sure we sit down, watch training, do a lot of analysis. Just make sure that we’re all on the same page.

“I know Jamie very well obviously, from playing with him a lot of times in Leinster. I always said to him, the most impressive thing about him, I think, is how when he steps up a level, it’s just natural to him.

“You saw him in his first couple of Ireland games against South Africa. He just doesn’t get phased by any of the bigger occasions.

“Then Rob is obviously similar to myself in that it’s taken a while for him to get a chance with his body not playing ball, but when he gets a chance, he’s class. So, just making sure we’re all on the same page and working with each other well.”

The provinces will take centre stage again over the coming weeks and months, as they compete for silverware in the URC and both the Champions Cup and the EPCR Challenge Cup, before Farrell’s men reconvene for a thrilling summer of rugby with the inaugural Nations Championship kicking off.

Ireland’s three July fixtures will see them head to the southern hemisphere to play Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. For November’s Northern Series, they will host Argentina, Fiji, and South Africa at the Aviva Stadium, just under a year out from the start of the 2027 Rugby World Cup.

O’Brien said a big part of the squad’s journey towards the World Cup in Australia is ‘getting guys game-time in big competitions’ like the Six Nations. Putting themselves in contention for the Nations Championship’s top prize in London at the end of November is another clear aim.

“It’s something that we’ve talked about, the journey over this next 18 months, and there’s a few milestones along the way. So, a Triple Crown is  a great way to start.

“I was watching the 2023 World Cup at home, so it’s the excitement to potentially be involved in something like that in 2027 and have the whole nation behind us. It’s incredible.

“The Nations Championship, it’s very exciting. It is something that’s never been won before, so we have the opportunity to be the first,” he added.