Brendan Gallagher looks at James O’Connor’s challenge.
Stade Felix Mayol or the AJ Bell Stadium? The dazzling Med or misty Manchester? T14 aristocracy or Premiership stalwarts? Those were the choices facing James O’Connor for this season and to the surprise of some he chose Sale, not Toulon where he has spent the last two and a bit years.
Or was it really that much of a surprise? O’Connor might be an occasionally wayward individual but the rugby fires have always burnt fiercely and, at 27, time is running out if he really wants to maximise his very considerable talent.
It’s all relative of course. He already boasts 44 Australian caps in a Test career that ground to a halt in 2013 after a spectacular dismissal from the Wallaby camp and Australian rugby after an alcohol related incident at Perth airport where he was en route to Bali for a short break.
O’Connor played Super Rugby at 17, is the second youngest Wallaby ever at 18, has scored 14 Test tries, played two World Cups, appeared in four positions behind the scrum, won matches against the All Blacks with last minute penalties and generally looked extremely special.
But it could have been so much more. For four years now he has been almost the archetypal young Aussie ‘doing’ Europe, trying to discover himself and Sale could be the last staging post in that process. O’Connor has reached the stage of his rugby career when he needs to be a big fish in a small pond and that is no disrespect to Sale who have big plans under new ownership.
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