Brian O'Driscoll may have been well regarded as one of, if not the best, centres of his generation. However, one incident from the 2005 Lions Tour showed little regard for O'Driscoll's wellbeing, with a now-infamous tackle putting a brutal end to his Lions Tour.
It was the first test against New Zealand, when Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu picked O'Driscoll up and dumped him onto the ground, injuring the Irish star's shoulder in infamously brutal fashion and ending his Lions Tour only 40 seconds into the first test.
While Umaga and Mealamu went unpunished that day, the fall out after the incident played a significant role in changing the way tackles and player safety were policed in World Rugby.
Such change was evident in a New Zealand Club rugby fixture this weekend when two Auckland players were sent to the sin-bin for a near carbon copy of that 2005 incident.
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Fans liken horror tackle to 2005 BOD incident
The spear tackle occurred in a game between Hawke's Bay and Auckland in the National Provincial Championship, when Auckland prop Sika Uamaki-Pole and full-back Zarn Sullivan produced a near-exact repeat of the famous tackle on Brian O'Driscoll.
However, unlike in 2005 both Auckland stars were spotted by the matchday officials and sent to serve their time in the sin-bin.
One of the worst clean outs you’ll ever see pic.twitter.com/daQopgqtcN
— Jamie Wall (@JamieWall2) September 28, 2024
Rugby journalist Jamie Wall shared the footage on Twitter where nearly everybody likened it to the infamous 2005 O'Driscoll incident.
One fan chimed in to say 'Now he knows how Brian O'Driscoll felt' while others remarked that 'They must have been watching Umaga and Mealamu do that on O'Driscoll back in 05 in first Lions Test' and that it was 'Pretty much a replica of Bod in 2005', among a host of other comparisons.
Got the O’Driscoll treatment
— JS (@stevo_top14) September 28, 2024
Reminiscent of Tana and Kevvy on BOD
— Dominic Ward (@DominicWard14) September 28, 2024
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