LONDON – Paul O’Connell will bring up 100 caps when he runs out onto Millennium Stadium to face Wales in their 6 Nations clash on Saturday.
The form team of the competition and still currently undefeated in this year’s 6 Nations, the inspirational captain has been huge for Ireland since the departure of fellow Irish legend and world-record test cap holder Brian O’Driscoll.
The 35 year old will target this 6 Nations as well as the Rugby World Cup which starts in September as his swansong as he will unlikely appear in green after the conclusion of the World Cup.
After 13 years in the jersey, O’Connell said there’s not much difference to putting on the green jersey to when he donned it for the first time in 2002.
“When you are coming towards the end you appreciate that there won’t be many more of them,” he said.
“You want them all to be good days. You want to have that feeling in the dressing room after you win. It means more now I think. Now that I am older, I realise that it might have come a little easy to me when I was 22. There were a couple of injuries at Munster and I got in. There were a couple of injuries at Ireland too and I got picked. It all happened really quickly.”