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#360view: Captains from two different eras but with equally impressive credentials

#360view: Captains from two different eras but with equally impressive credentials

In the ever-changing landscape of this year’s Six Nations, Ireland’s visit to Cardiff should need no further billing. It is after all the latest in a string of championship deciders. However, Saturday’s contest has been afforded some added gravitas with the impending achievements of the two men who will lead their sides into battle.

At the age of just 26, Sam Warburton will set a new record for caps won as Wales captain when he leaves the Millennium Stadium tunnel to make his 34th appearance as his country’s skipper.

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Paul O’Connell, meanwhile, will stride out for his 100th Ireland cap, while also equalling the record for the oldest player ever to lead the Emerald Isle.

It is fitting that these two colossal men have dominated the build-up to a match that could have huge ramifications well beyond this championship. Each is the heartbeat of his side, totemic figures that lead by example, but while both have also captained the British and Irish Lions, and helped the touring side to a series victory, the similarities end there.

Warburton is a very modern kind of rugby union player. He is a man of action, inspiring others with what he does on the pitch rather than what he says off it. The 26-year-old is also extremely driven and focused, a teetotaller whose idea of a good time away from rugby involves watching his beloved Tottenham play or be surrounded by his dogs.

If Warren Gatland was handed the keys to a laboratory and tasked with creating the perfect professional sportsman, you could be almost certain that the result would be a clone of Warburton.

O’Connell, at 35, can remember a slightly different era, and his path to the captaincy was never pre-ordained. Having excelled at both swimming and GAA during his youth, he only concentrated seriously on rugby at 16, and didn’t make his debut for Munster until he was almost 22 – the age when Warburton became Wales skipper.

Yet his determination is there for all to see. O’Connell was never going to follow Brian O’Driscoll into retirement with a World Cup so close, and the second-row has played some of his best rugby in the twilight of his career.

Certainly anyone who saw him smash into tackles against Australia last autumn or England earlier this month would find it hard to believe that he’s entering the final furlong of his international career.

Neither player will win this game on his own, but their all-action styles could well set the platform for their side to prosper.
And how important victory could prove. Two points for Ireland would all-but seal back-to-back titles, and rubber stamp their credentials as the northern hemisphere’s most complete side.

Seeing as they have lost just twice in the Cardiff since 1983, Irish supporters will understandably arrive in the principality full of hope. But if the hosts snatch a fourth win in their last six meetings, then, ahead of a date with Italy, they are back in contention for another Six Nations success.

Victory would also give their World Cup ambitions a timely boost, and help Warburton on his way to achieving the kind of legendary status that O’Connell already, and deservedly, enjoys.


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