| Brendan Fanning, The Guardian, 23rd February 2007
The centre's form is such that his partnership with Ireland's captain is becoming one of equals
Gordon D'Arcy says that, in the week after Ireland's defeat by France, the management and players spent a lot of time talking about the beginning of the match and the end. The first was slow, the second so fast that Ireland didn't react in time and an historic triumph disappeared down the pan. Just like that.
The 27-year-old centre implies that a few years ago something like this would have torn the heart out of an Ireland squad and that a transplant couldn't have been organised in time for tomorrow's visit of England to Croke Park. And now?
'This team has developed enough that we can take a loss and turn it into a positive,' he says. A student of body language would give the man an A-plus. 'We've talked about why we've been starting badly and we'd be pretty confident that we've had an honest chat with ourselves. We seem to know what's going on and we hope to get it right on the weekend.'
So what about that frantic endgame at Croke Park two weeks ago - what happened there? 'I don't know,' he replies. 'To be honest, I've been trying to look at it objectively, subjectively, everything - and I can't make head nor tail of it. What were the odds of them getting the ball back and scoring a try like that with two minutes to go?
'I think the big thing we have to learn from this is that we have to play for 80 minutes. Brian [O'Driscoll] coming back now as well gives Paul [O'Connell] more of a role in the forwards to control the ebb and flow of guys. He'll be able to get back into his role in there and make sure it doesn't happen again.'
If the trauma of losing in such circumstances would once have reduced Ireland to jelly, you wonder what impact it would have had on the younger D'Arcy. He has come a long way from the precocious schoolboy talent of 1998, to the wayward pro of the early 2000s, to his current status as equal partner with O'Driscoll. Nobody is saying that he is a better player than the Ireland captain, but nor is anyone suggesting that O'Driscoll is playing better than his less celebrated sidekick, who will win his 29th cap against England and signed a three-year contract extension with Ireland and Leinster yesterday.
If 2004 was D'Arcy's breakthrough season, when he was the player of the championship as Ireland lifted their first triple crown in 19 years, this year has seen him find a serenity that feeds his game. He isn't beating a drum about it but he accepts that a 10-day trip to Kolkata in India last summer with the Irish charity GOAL opened his eyes to sights he had never considered. Its impact has given him a perspective that can only help with his life and his job.
'You go to Calcutta and see people living on the street and washing themselves in rainwater running out of a gutter,' he says. 'When you get home you realise you've won the lottery on where you were born . . . and what family and what society you were born into. When you're down and out and things are not going your way [in rugby] it makes you realise how good you still have it. Form and confidence aren't tangible, you can't put your finger on it. When you have it you've just got to go with it, and when you don't you have to figure out why not.
'I may not go back to Calcutta but GOAL are involved in 20 to 30 countries all over the world so I'll definitely be involved in some shape or form.'
More immediately, D'Arcy has a job on his hands with England's massive midfield. He has been intrigued by the rapid progress of the rugby league convert Andy Farrell, of whom he speaks almost with reverence. He hopes he will be 'up to the challenge' of playing against someone who achieved so much for so long in another code. You forget for a moment that D'Arcy is the one with the experience in this game, not Farrell.
'[England's] 10, 12, 13 trio has worked quite well in defence and I've looked at it on video and it seems well organised there. Obviously we want to make their job as hard as possible. We'll look at a couple of things, but I think Jonny Wilkinson being back there gives them an added confidence in defence. He's an aggressive defender and he's really leading the line up and it makes the job of a 12 very easy, and Mike Tindall's playing probably the best rugby of his life, so [Farrell] has got good guys around him, and I don't think they're protecting him in any way at all.'
It will not be the first time the 5ft 10in, 14st 2lb D'Arcy has traded blows with a much bigger man. 'Pretty much everyone in world rugby is bigger than me . . . I just kind of get on with it,' he says. "[Matt] Giteau's the only one smaller than me and he's playing nine at the moment.
'I've got my own attributes. Brian has got his good parts; Andy Farrell has got his good parts. I'll probably not look to go over him, because he probably outweighs me by about three stone.
'But I'm playing some good rugby. Over the summer I sat down and decided that I'm never a player that's going to be running over guys. It's about getting quick feet, and I've gone backwards in weight and it seems to have worked.'
Farrell will be the best judge of that, for Ireland are certain to have a go at England down this channel. And not by force alone. A more rounded, more content player, D'Arcy has learned that there isn't much worth panicking about, certainly not rugby. He is so much better for the experience.
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