REVEALED: The role Brian O’Driscoll played in Sean O’Brien’s lenient World Cup ban

The Word of BOD.

By this stage, most Irish rugby supporters have come to terms with the fact that Sean O'Brien will miss this Sunday's World Cup quarter final against Argentina. The IRFU can appeal his one-week ban [for striking French lock Pascal Papé] but they will not. They know that O'Brien was fortunate to receive just the one-match ban. World Rugby, last night, released its official judicial decision document on the O'Brien hearing. It is 15 pages long and makes for a fascinating read. For his part, O'Brien declared:

"I just wanted to break free and try to get whoever it was off me at the time. "I was fully focused on the next play and what my job was. It was early in the game and I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t making any mistakes at that stage, so I was fully focused on my next job. "I was just trying to get rid of the player off my side and get to where I wanted to be in the defensive line."

A surprise inclusion in the document, however, is that of one character witness. While Ireland coach Joe Schmidt gave a statement on behalf of his player - praising his character on and off the field, as well as his decent disciplinary record - a former teammate of O'Brien also features. Brian O'Driscoll delivered a glowing statement about O'Brien, whom he played with at Leinster for six seasons. The character reference appears as 'Exhibit L' in the judicial officers Terry Willis' final decision on O'Brien. On the same day that O'Driscoll sent in his statement - October 13 - he took to Twitter to express his bemusement that the proceedings had dragged over six hours. "How can it have taken that long if he said 'I did it'?" the former Ireland captain wrote. Whatever he wrote in his statement - allied to the other evidence put out in O'Brien's defence - seemed to do the trick.