They have gone toe-to-toe at international level and stood together on a Lions' tour, so as fate would have it, Brian O'Driscoll was reunited with former England and Lions' captain Martin Johnson on his first show as a Off The Ball guest presenter.
The two reminisced about their experience together on the 2001 Tour of Australia in detail, including the night that BOD "emerged as a world star". Brian and Johnson also spoke about the England team from the early noughties and the infamous red carpet moment before the 2003 Grand Slam decider.
Listen to the full interview above via the podcast
"What happened before the game was that England lined up first. We've always line up on the left hand side and England would have surely known that. So I'm walking over and I'm thinking they're on the left so we'll just walk over to the right. But a few of the boys said 'we're always on the left'. So the next thing I see is someone coming out and having a quiet word with Johnno and asking him to move his team over and him in no uncertain terms saying 'that will not be happening today,'" said Brian.
"So we had three options: to stand in front of them on the red carpet - not a great option, stand behind them - bit of a position of weakness - or alternatively stand to the left of them which is our natural placing for the anthems. So on that occasion our president [Mary McAleese] had to move off the red carpet and get her shoes dirty."
Johnson also gave his side of the story and claimed that "nobody mentioned it after the game" until the papers wrote about it.
The former Ireland captain also spoke about his former team-mate Jonathan Sexton's decision to return home to Leinster and opened up about the lure of the south of France during his own career.
He also gave his take on the recent email leak at Munster.
"If I saw some of those things written about me, I'd be like "screw you," said Brian.
Listen to the full first Off The Ball appearance as a co-presenter via the podcast.
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