FEATURE The fire that drove Peter O'Mahony to become a Test centurion

There is a story Donncha O’Callaghan tells about a young Peter O’Mahony that goes straight to the core. The year was 2009, a time when Munster still had a swagger to their step and a dream in their head.

“Well Pete, boy,” O’Callaghan bellowed, with the kind of familiarity that came from a decade knowing one another, O’Mahony once being a ball boy at Cork Con, O’Callaghan’s club.

“We’re doing a few extras (sprints). You (academy) lads want to take us on or what?”

O’Mahony didn’t blink.

“Lads to the line, now.”

He spoke. The rest of the academy squad followed.

“You could tell they respected him,” O’Callaghan remembers, and you can understand why, O’Mahony captaining every team he has ever played for.

The sprints ensued, and typical of that Munster era, were competitive, intense, edgy.

Ten minutes later, the academy contingent finally made their way back to the dressing room.

All bar one: O’Mahony.

“Donncha, could I have a word, please?” he asked.

O’Callaghan obliged and as soon as he saw those piercing eyes glare back at him, he realised he was in a spot of bother. “We’re following a strict training programme,” O’Mahony said, “and because of our age, the fact we are still growing, we have been told to ease up on certain days. Don’t put me in a position like that again.”

At the time O’Callaghan was a two-times Lions tourist, grand slam winner and veteran of two World Cups. O’Mahony was 19.

And he was on his way.

Then all of a sudden, from being lords of the manner, they were squatting next to noisy neighbours, rugby’s version of Nick Carraway, jealously observing the parties next door at Gatsby’s. As the noughties ended and the 2010s began, Leinster got good, Munster got worse.

And that was how it has been, right through his career … until this season, when they sprung a surprise against their Irish rivals in the URC semis before winning the final.

It wouldn’t have happened without their skipper because he stayed with them through the dark hours, when the team transitioned from old to young, from world leaders to makeweights.

And if we wonder why he hung around, as money offers came in from France and England, then we have to go back to where it all started.

Dad John is a Con man. It’s in the blood.

He bought a 19th century property in Blackrock, where he brings a creativity and intensity to his gardening, regularly showing off his work on Instagram, relishing the balance that Cork provides, ‘a buzz but not the craziness of Dublin’.

So is Cork. So is Ireland.

When Munster relocated to the University of Limerick, a 90-minute drive away, O’Mahony chose to commute rather than sell up and move home.

You can see why. He bought a 19th century property in Blackrock, where he brings a creativity and intensity to his gardening, regularly showing off his work on Instagram, relishing the balance that Cork provides, ‘a buzz but not the craziness of Dublin’.

Better again, it allows him to disappear to the rugged west of the county, where he takes his three dogs, two Labradors and a Springer Spaniel. Minding them helps to take his mind off rugby.

As a kid he was always an outdoors boy, a kayaker as a youth, holidaying in west Cork at a time when there was no internet or even a TV. As a three-year-old he was dreaming of this, playing for Ireland in a World Cup, throwing a ball around with dad John in the back garden, watching his old man play for Con, the subs minding him when his dad was carted off the pitch one day to get his cartilage cleaned out, following an injury.

“I just loved being around the club,” he’d later say.

The smells. The sounds. The atmosphere.

It was him.

He first played a game of rugby as a five-year-old – for Con’s Under 8s.

Now and then he’d take a bang and he’d cry. The old fella would say, ‘get back in there kid’. And that was it. After a few seasons, he got used to the pain, and by the time they were playing Under 12 rugby, he was touring Wales and France, and loving the demands of twice weekly training sessions, as he evolved from a wing, to centre, even as a No.10 for a year and then finally a flanker.

You don’t want him angry. As an opponent he was a nightmare, as a teammate the best.”

Rory Best

He could play. Ireland spotted that. He captained their Under 20s. They liked his athleticism and intelligence, his ability to decode an opposition line-out. Most of all they liked him, this smart, emotionally intelligent, loyal, empathetic fella who’d turn into a dog when he crossed the line and heard the first whistle blow.

As time passed, Munster and Ireland fans grew to love him, the rest to hate him. He simultaneously became Peter the Great and Peter the Grate.

“I relied heavily on him when I was Ireland captain,” wrote Rory Best in his autobiography. “He was a natural leader, a strong character, he kept me honest.”

Best and Ulster figured him out. Wind him up and they’d pay the price. “You don’t want him angry,” Best said. So they overdid the charm on match days, killing him with kindness. “As an opponent he was a nightmare, as a teammate the best,” said Best.

And that is what they became from 2012 to 2019, when Best retired.

They had great days together, a 2018 win over the All Blacks, when O’Mahony had the game of his life, after winning a grand slam that year.

That year he won his 50th cap, Saturday will be his 100th.

So, let’s go back to the day he got his first. This is what he said then.

“It is a privilege. The best job in the world. There is no better privilege than putting on the green jersey.”

In 69 of those 98 Ireland games, he was ended up on the winning side, another defeat coming in cap No.99 for the Lions. Gatland ditched him after that, denting his confidence to an extent. Yet he bounced back. And that has been the story of Peter O’Mahony.

The biggest test he faced in his career was in 2016, the year Anthony Foley passed away suddenly. That Munster dressing room was in danger of imploding. And O’Mahony kept it together.

That knee injury in 2015? Those semi-final and final losses for Munster? The benching by Schmidt and then Farrell? He coped.

And why?

Because that’s who he is. The best of Ireland, he’s the best of us, rugged, determined, a fighter for his dreams, someone who never gives up.

The biggest test he faced in his career was in 2016, the year Anthony Foley passed away suddenly.

That Munster dressing room was in danger of imploding.

And O’Mahony kept it together.

The day after Foley’s funeral, they played Glasgow, an emotive occasion when Keith Earls was sent off for a tip tackle. In his autobiography, Earls wrote about how Munster felt the Glasgow players were milking the moment.

At one stage the referee pulled the two captains together, the ref mic recording the conversation.

“They are over emotional,” Glasgow’s Jonny Gray opined.

O’Mahony instantly pushed Gray backwards.

“Don’t fucking tell us what emotions we should have,” he said.

Those eyes glared at the Scottishman.

This was not a day to take a backward step. Nor will Saturday be. When the Springboks appear in the Paris night, the Munster centurion is ready to stand up and fight.