On the day of his greatest honour in rugby, Peter O’Mahony was in the dog-house.
We’re sure it was not for too long but he had an initially tricky long-distance call to negotiate.
O’Mahony will captain the Lions in the First Test against New Zealand, at Eden Park, and the story about how he came from nowhere to even make the squad is legend at this stage.
Just over five minutes before Ireland took on England at the Aviva Stadium, Jamie Heaslip pulled up with what was initially announced as an ankle injury but later turned out to be a back problem.
Following a hard-fought victory over the English, Ireland coach Joe Schmidt revealed the short, sharp conversation he had with O’Mahony, CJ Stander and 24th man Dan Leavy. He commented:
“Dan Leavy got heck of a shock. I said, ‘You need to grab that jersey off Pete. Pete, you grab number six off CJ and CJ, you grab eight off Jamie because Jamie pulled his upper hamstring unable to play’.”
And so the course of history changed. Heaslip is recuperating after a March operation while O’Mahony is now leading the Lions.
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The Cork native was superb in victories over Crusaders and the Maori All Blacks but, until last Saturday, few expected O’Mahony would be asked to lead the Lions at Eden Park.
Such was the lateness of the captaincy call that O’Mahony, as he told Sky Sports, didn’t even have a chance to let Jessica Moloney, his girlfriend, know. He commented:
“I got a bit of stick from the missus. I went straight into a meeting after [I was made captain] so some of the other lads knew what the story was and she got it off someone else. She wasn’t overly impressed.”
We have no doubt Jessica let him away with it after making him sweat for a while.
Another tough challenge negotiated but much, much bigger ones await.
