‘It does hurt’: O’Connor opens up on Wallabies snub and Australia return

After 17 seasons of professional rugby, veteran playmaker James O’Connor has learned one valuable lesson: no coaching decision is personal, no matter how brutal they may seem from the outside.

In November, O’Connor wasn’t selected for the Wallabies’ end-of-year tour Tests against England or Italy and went on holiday to Morocco.

He was recalled to start against Ireland in Dublin – but after the Wallabies lost, he was told by coach Joe Schmidt he wasn’t needed against France the following week, even as a squad member. The five-eighth then returned to his English club, Leicester. He maintains that while the decision was difficult, it was still part of the plan.

“I actually commentated [on] the England game [in November], I spoke to Joe [Schmidt] right after that game, and then he just said, ‘Where are you at? How are you feeling? Do you want to come in [to play]?’ I was like, ‘Of course I want to come in’,” O’Connor said.

“It was just a case-by-case of how the guys were feeling, and I think Carter [Gordon] was back for that next one [France]. So as soon as he was back, Joe just said, pretty much, ‘Look, Carter’s back, and I don’t want you just to hang around and hold a [tackle] pad, we want you to get back to Leicester and do your duty for them because they’ve been so good with us’.

“I was just coming in for that one week [against Ireland], and I would have put my hand up again if the guys needed me, but Carter was back, he got the job, so then I came back [to Leicester] and got cracking again.”

O’Connor remains in touch with Schmidt and maintains that there are no hard feelings about the decision not to take him to Paris.

“It was more them [the Wallabies] helping me out with load [management] and that sort of stuff. I’m not going to lie, it does hurt, but I’ve been in and out of teams through my whole career,” O’Connor said.

“I’ve been to the top of the mountain and then dropped. It’s not the first time it’s happened to me. Not that it gets easier, but you’ve got to understand nothing is personal, number one.

“Number two, I know where I’m at in my career, I know my worth and I know what I can do on the rugby field. I’m an open book. If you think I can add value, great, I want to add value. If you go in a different direction as well, that’s fine too. Eventually, there’s going to be a younger guy that comes through and is playing for Australia and I totally understand it all.”

O’Connor also believes his reaction to being dropped is now different to when he was younger and saw his life through a narrow prism of success and failure. O’Connor is thriving at Leicester and recently lifted the Premiership Cup.

“It was very different to how I was when I was younger, but I learned that lesson pretty early, you cannot ride that rollercoaster,” he said.

“When you’re young, every game, it’s like you take your whole life’s worth based on how you played, if you played poorly on a Saturday, your whole week can be affected.

“It affects your private life, your personal life. It affects so many different things. The great thing about rugby is there’s always a game next week, and there’s always something to get involved in.”

O’Connor is regularly playing in front of packed houses against some of the best teams in Europe, but understands it is only for one season. His ultimate ambition is to return to finish his rugby career in Australia.

“I’d love to come back to Australia to play if that opportunity arises, but at the moment, my focus is on Leicester and doing well for the club and I’m really enjoying myself here and we’ve already won some silverware, so we will see what happens,” he said.

O’Connor, who played for Wallabies coach-in-waiting Les Kiss at the Queensland Reds, still wants to play for his country and believes that it starts with playing well for Leicester. The English club is challenging for the league title under former Wallabies assistant coach Geoff Parling.

“There are other guys in Super Rugby who are playing at the moment and doing well, it’s all about whether they get the first crack [for the Wallabies in July], but Joe [Schmidt] knows me now,” O’Connor said.

“We’ve built a good relationship and obviously, I played under Les for a year [at the Reds] so I’ve got a good rapport with Les as well and I really enjoyed working under him.

“I know they know what I can do on the field and then it’s just about the opportunity coming up, chatting with a lot of the guys back home, there haven’t been too many conversations about Wallaby spots … the best thing I can do is keep performing well and keep getting some game time and building my game.

“Like I said even last year and the year before, if I’m playing well enough, the coaches will find a way to fit you in.”

O’Connor has built a good life in Leicester; he has the best dog walks scoped out and just before this interview, revelled in his role as a quizmaster for fans of the club.

But old habits die hard and he is still a regular viewer of Super Rugby and has been impressed by Declan Meredith’s progress as five-eighth at the Brumbies. O’Connor believes Meredith can step up to the highest level, but also understands there is a significant jump from Super Rugby to the Test arena.

“I think he’s done so well, I feel like he could take his game to that next level, but it is an interesting thing,” O’Connor said.

“I know Morgan Turinui said it [on Stan Sport], how you don’t want to throw the young guys to the wolves too early, but it’s about how you blood them. I think New Zealand rugby does that really well in terms of how they bring them [playmakers] through, they bide their time, but that’s one thing I noticed coming up to Test rugby as a 10, it’s a really different game in terms of that jump up.”

At 35-years-old, O’Connor knows his time as a player is running out and he is determined to savour every moment.

Through trial and error, O’Connor sees the game differently to when he was a teenage sensation playing on raw instinct. On Wednesday, O’Connor finished kicking practice in gale-force wind and rain in Leicester and left with a smile. The parts of rugby he once reviled are being savoured.

“I love every element of it, and the older I get, the more I see it as a game strategy and not just physicality,” O’Connor said.

“You probably lose a bit of speed, but you also gain a bit of wisdom. I call it playing a little bit of chess, being able to manipulate the backfield, being able to read flows, being able to see shapes, all those sort of things. You don’t get to that place until you get a bit older and you’ve played.

“I’ve seen patterns unfold hundreds of times and got it wrong that many times that I’ve got to eventually get it right now.”

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