D'arcy or O'Driscoll whos better?

Erin Go Brath

Our two centres are our two best players imo. O 'Driscoll scored a hat-trick of tries against France a few years back. Since then he's become something of a legend. His tough tackling, legendary side-step, and all-round leadership abilities have made him a favourite.

D'arcy however, whenever he gets the ball, almost always breaks the gain line. He even looks if anything more dangerous with ball in hand than Drico at line breaking. It seems to take ages for the opposition to put him to ground, despite him being a relatively small fella.

Watching the two centres during the 6N's I've come around to thinking that maybe D'arcy has surpassed Drico as a player.

What thinks ye???

davyjose

i don't think we saw the best of drico at this 6N. But I have to say as a supporter of both sides he plays in, I feel very uncomfortable when he's not playing. For instance for the maybe 70 mins he was on against Italy, our try count was 7-0, when he came off it was 1-2. Says a lot in my book - teams don't score a lot of tries against us when he's playing. But his support play is so immense that they concede a lot.
D'Arcy is awesome and after a quiet season a few years back, has got to be the in-form player in the Northern Hemisphere at the moment. But if I had to live without one, It'd be D'Arcy, by a whisker. Hopefully I won't have to. These two will surely be together right through the next lions tour and onwards.

Linford

O'Driscoll is not the try scoring machine he used to be, but his defence and leadership have improved beyond all bounds. Defences have an idea what he does now and adjust their defencive strategy accordingly.

D'Arcy appears at the moment to be a better line breaker, but amazingly only has only scored 4 tries for Ireland.

I think O'Driscoll is a better offloader of the ball and he sets up more tries.

If I had to choose one on my team it would be O'Driscoll, but would rather have both.

Anyone know O'Driscoll's win/loss rate as captain. As a ratio it must be the highest of any Irish captain (long term captains).

racso1975

It's a great question I think a few years ago I always believed that Darcy was only a crash baller......but i think teams have started to mark O'Driscoll so heavily that this has allowed Darcy the chance to do more then try to gain a few yards.

In their current form i think its hard to pick and if they did not play together i dont think either of them would be able to impress as they would be so heavily marked as individuals

buck65

The world cup will determine how good D'Arcy is. O Driscoll is a proven match winner. D'arcy isn't. What about D'arcy turning down the chance to play for the Lions 3rd test because he was "fatigued"?!
It's fine winning man of the match against the likes of Italy, and playing well against such rubbish teams as England Wales and Scotland but against the S Hemisphere teams and France in the RWC will be the test.
Only then can D'arcy be compared with O Driscoll. At the moment he is a good player.

Steffano2002

D'Arcy D'Arcy D'Arcy D'Arcy D'Arcy D'Arcy D'Arcy!

IMO, he's worth two O'Driscoll's. He's more consistent, can pass the ball backwards (:p) and doesn't kick the ball everytime he gets it!

D'Arcy D'Arcy D'Arcy D'Arcy D'Arcy D'Arcy D'Arcy!

zuutroy

Linford wrote:

Anyone know O'Driscoll's win/loss rate as captain. As a ratio it must be the highest of any Irish captain (long term captains).

I know he's lost 4 matches as captain. Not sure about the wins though.
The thing about him is that much like Michael Jordan in the NBA, he attracted so much defensive attention, being double and triple teamed that he could never go on being the twinkle toed linebreaker he started as; but again like Jordan, he managed to change his game by recognising the gaps left elsewhere by the defensive attention he was getting and being able to offload the ball with a flick of the wrist to those gaps. I think he makes D'arcy better in that regard. That coupled with his awesome defense, commitment and leadership mean that I'd take him over Gordo.

Slothy

Also you have to take the view that O'driscoll is very heavily marked there for possibly eases up the attention on darcy (from an opponents defensive point of view.)
Its very difficult to say but all things being equal Odriscoll is an amazing player with amazing vision.

Linford

zuutroy wrote:

I know he's lost 4 matches as captain. Not sure about the wins though.
The thing about him is that much like Michael Jordan in the NBA, he attracted so much defensive attention, being double and triple teamed that he could never go on being the twinkle toed linebreaker he started as; but again like Jordan, he managed to change his game by recognising the gaps left elsewhere by the defensive attention he was getting and being able to offload the ball with a flick of the wrist to those gaps. I think he makes D'arcy better in that regard. That coupled with his awesome defense, commitment and leadership mean that I'd take him over Gordo.

I agree with you there, I think O'Driscoll does make D'Arcy a better player.

With regard to the loses, I would say its more than 4 becuase Ireland lost 4 matches in 2006 and O'Driscoll was captain for all of them.

Hippo

O'Driscoll is the best Irish player I've ever seen, and that's in nearly 40 years. This is not meant to downgrade D'Arcy, who is outstanding. Aren't we lucky?

Ghost Train

Would have to say O'Driscoll, but he been around longer than D'arcy and has proved himself as one of the best players. D'arcy seems to be improving every year, hopfully that continues. I don't think it matters too much who's better, would hate to be without either of them for the world cup

zuutroy

Linford wrote:

With regard to the loses, I would say its more than 4 becuase Ireland lost 4 matches in 2006 and O'Driscoll was captain for all of them.

You may be right, but I'm nearly sure I heard one of them on the TV say it this past weekend

Diamondmaker

They are both excellent players and very diffrent yet alike in their game.

Ireland has improved greatly since we had them both in the centre. BOD was there before Darcy but our fortunes have changed ( along with other reason of course ) when EOS put Darcy beside him.

Darcy feeds off the etxra space that is not usually available to a 12 due to BOD at 13.

Its very tricky for defences to give either or both the attention the require because of each others presence.

They are a unit in attack defence and rucking, even mauling. They both play better becuase of each other.

Fittness wise poor BODs hammer would have you pick Dracy as better "value" if you had to buy them for a fantasy team. He misses too much game. So perhaps Darcy is a better player for this BUT ONLY thins in my opinion.

Sangre

I have as yet to see D'arcy pull out an 'over the Hickie' pass or a reverse, looking otherway pass to Horgan. If we didn't have BOD D'arcy would just be double-marked and he couldn't do anything imo.

walshb

Both fantastic players, but I think if you asked any coach in the world who they would pick as their Centre over the past few years and today, It's Brian
O'Driscoll. He is a proven match winner and world class player. Even when he doesn't 'shine' so to speak, he makes the difficult things look easy. He gives confidence to those around him and he can change a match in a Flash.
He is a notch above Darcy, which is no disgrace as he is a notch above pretty much every Centre on the planet

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Sundy

buck65 wrote:

The world cup will determine how good D'Arcy is. O Driscoll is a proven match winner. D'arcy isn't. What about D'arcy turning down the chance to play for the Lions 3rd test because he was "fatigued"?!
It's fine winning man of the match against the likes of Italy, and playing well against such rubbish teams as England Wales and Scotland but against the S Hemisphere teams and France in the RWC will be the test.
Only then can D'arcy be compared with O Driscoll. At the moment he is a good player.

What has that got to do with which player is better? That was a brutally honest call by a player not fit to play.

Sandwich

Steffano2002 wrote:

IMO, he's worth two O'Driscoll's. He's more consistent, can pass the ball backwards (:p) and doesn't kick the ball everytime he gets it!
!

Good players can pass the ball backwards. It takes a great one to pass it forward and get away with it tho;)

davyjose

O'Driscoll's off the ball running, his support play, are a large part of the reason Ireland (and Leinster) have the ability at times to score so heavily.

athtrasna

I'd give the honour to O'Driscoll for consistently giving it all, and sometimes too much. O'Driscoll has it all, defence, speed, the flick of genius, inspiration and motivator.

D'Arcy has definitely found his form in recent seasons amd the partnership works well but he's no O'Driscoll. Hard to specify exactly why but if I were picking my first choice team and couldn't have both I'd choose O'Driscoll without D'Arcy any day over D'arcy without O'Driscoll.

Sangre

I was watching the highlights of the 2001 Lions tour and I realised how silly this thread is.

Goodluck2me

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

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It would be closer between O Connell and Dàrcy but O Driscoll is possibly the best in the world as an all round player. he can tackle, maul, ruck, lead, pacey, skillfull and is cool under pressure. Darcy is a brilliant player but O Driscoll is where the barr is set for centres worldwide.

Erin Go Brath

Sangre wrote:

I was watching the highlights of the 2001 Lions tour and I realised how silly this thread is.

Darcy wasnt a regular in the Ireland team until 2003, plus I was talking about whos better now, so your comment is moot :rolleyes:

Darcy and Driscoll are both legends in their own right; dont get me wrong I wouldnt be without either, but it was just bugging me who people rate the most effective at the moment. Drico can do no wrong in most peoples eyes, and thats fair enough, but D'arcy gets MOTM a lot of the time, and seeing that he plays in the same team as Drico, that would suggest that he is the better player, would it not! Granted Dricos legendary reputation precedes him, and sides are going to come out and try to nullify him, akin to a man-marking job in soccer, so I guess its hard one to call really!!!

Sangre

Erin Go Brath wrote:

Darcy wasnt a regular in the Ireland team until 2003, plus I was talking about whos better now, so your comment is moot :rolleyes:

You also asked if "maybe D'arcy has surpassed Drico as a player" which can clearly be taken to read he has surpassed Drico's greatness, so your rolleyes is also moot.

PHB

D'Arcy is great, but just look at the times when O'Driscoll wasn't on the pitch to see what he adds to the team.
In the last few seconds against France, if he had been playing, we would have won.
In the last couple of minutes against Italy, we concedded two weak trys, and I firmly believe we would have not concedded if he was on the pitch.

He didn't play amazing in the 6 nations this year, but then again, he was the mastermind behind the absolute demolising of England.
In the World Cup, if O'Driscoll performs, anything can happen.

zAbbo

PHB wrote:

D'Arcy is great, but just look at the times when O'Driscoll wasn't on the pitch to see what he adds to the team.
In the last few seconds against France, if he had been playing, we would have won.
In the last couple of minutes against Italy, we concedded two weak trys, and I firmly believe we would have not concedded if he was on the pitch.

He didn't play amazing in the 6 nations this year, but then again, he was the mastermind behind the absolute demolising of England.
In the World Cup, if O'Driscoll performs, anything can happen.

you mean if BOD can stay fit, it's fairly evident he can't, consider we play argentina, france then possible quarters in quick succession

crybaby

I think O'Driscolls leadership makes him the more valuable player and that was really highlighted this year I mean we basically didnt the thing because he wasnt there but solely based on skills they are very even but I think O'Driscoll still might edge that one aswell