The 'worm burner' that put an end to Brian O'Driscoll goal-kicking

Brian O’Driscoll has recalled the shanked kick that put an end to his attempt to be a professional level goal-kicker. The legendary Ireland and British and Irish Lions midfielder has become a very entertaining pundit in recent years, often revealing stories from his career where he has a hearty chuckle at himself.

How he quit kicking off the tee is another yarn that can now be filed under this amusing category. Appearing on an Off The Ball podcast, the retired 45-year-old jogged his mind back to September 1999 when he was helping Leinster out with their place-kicking in an interprovincial match versus Connacht.

O’Driscoll has burst on the international scene a few months earlier when handed his debut caps for Ireland by Warren Gatland at the age of 20 on a tour to Australia. A kicker at age-grade level, he scored some points off the tee on his trip with the national team in a couple of their warm-up matches, but he wasn’t long in calling it quits after an embarrassing effort in Donnybrook.

Asked to recall his brief involvement as a kicker, O’Driscoll explained: “I did a bit of goal-kicking back in those days… but I am really glad I gave it up. The time and effort and energy that goes into that would have taken away from other aspect of your game.

“I do remember one time that I had a nail that was about to come off and I had a word to the doc. ‘It’s going to come off and it’s sore.’ It came off halfway through the game and I had to get an anaesthetic into my toe to numb the pain to play the second half.

“I used to take the long-range kicks because Girvan Dempsey was goal-kicking and within a minute (of the second half starting), one came up just inside the halfway line and I said, ‘I’ll have a pop at this… from 48 yards out’. It didn’t get more than two feet off the ground, literally worm burner. That might have been the last kick that I ever kicked for Leinster.

“I wasn’t thinking anything about the fact that I couldn’t feel my foot through my toe. I didn’t think anything. ‘I feel amazing here. I can feel this.’ I obviously couldn’t feel it quite as well as I thought I could.”

Explaining his background as a kicker before that seminal mishap with Leinster, he added: “I used to do a little bit of goal-kicking with Ireland on the tour in ’99 when I got my first cap, not in the Test matches but I kicked one or two goals in the warm-up games.

“I was a goal-kicker when I was in school and U19s but not a particularly good one. I was fine but it was something that I don’t look back and think I regret not keeping that up.”