Brian was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1979, but it wasn't until 1999 that Brian burst onto the scene for Irish Provincial team Leinster. Playing at outside centre he racked up an impressive 180 appearances for his club, scoring 311 points in the process.
O'Driscoll received his first cap for Ireland at the age of 20, before he had even had a senior game for Leinster (surely a sign of the quality of the young player). Unfortunately, O'Driscoll and the rest of the Irish team suffered a huge 46-10 loss to Australia. However, it was long until he was shining for Ireland and in 2000, O'Driscoll scored a Hat-trick of tries against France in the Six Nations. This was particularly impressive as it was Ireland's first win over France in Paris since 1972.
Fans were united in their love for Brian O'Driscoll and we even saw the birth of the motto "In BOD We Trust" which was strewn across the T-shirts of many supporters. It wasn't long before the Groggshop were also sharing in the admiration for this fantastic talent and circa 2000 the first ever Brian O'Driscoll Grogg was produced. Adorned in the traditional emerald green shirt with white collar BOD took his place in many a collector's home. This Grogg was limited to 300 pieces and was initially only available in a Groggy finish, however as the years passed this evolved to the natural finish which we know today. Even on this one particular mould you will see a few subtle differences when you compare the groggs of different collectors, for example at one point BOD dyed his hair bleach blonde, covering up his traditional brown hair. As a result the shop produced a number of pieces with very light blonde hair (this was in fact the colour of the hair on my first BOD Grogg).
Brian's career continued to go from strength to strength and in 2002 he was handed the captaincy of Ireland for the first time in Ireland's 18-9 win over Australia (a remarkable change from his debut against the same team). The captaincy was made permanent in 2003 when long serving captain Keith Wood retired. Brian led Ireland to second place in the Six Nations in the same year and a year later he helped Ireland to their first Triple Crown since 1985. In 2004, O'Driscoll captained Ireland to their first win against the Springboks since 1965, the impressive results kept coming and just in time for the Lions tour of 2005, his second tour since debuting very impressively for the Lions in 2001.
Following on from the 2005 Lions Tour, the Groggshop introduced the second iteration of O'Driscoll in Grogg form with an updated kit, this time it was the red and white colours of the British Lions. Limited to 100 pieces in total but any Grogg collector will tell you these never sold out making them a rare piece to find.
For both Leinster and Ireland O'Driscoll continued to impress and the titles kept coming. Brian helped Leinster to the Celtic league title in the 2007/08 season and won his first Heineken Cup in the following season. For Ireland a further 3 Triple Crown victories were won in 2006 and 2007 and the elusive Grand Slam was won in the Six Nations in 2009. It was this Grand Slam which led to the shop producing the first ever Brian O'Driscoll and Six Nations trophy Grogg and fantastic piece which reflected the impressive performance of both the captain and the nation. Following on from this impressive year Brian was called up to represent the British Lions on their 2009 tour of South Africa, once again we saw a revised Grogg produced. This time in the all red kit of the British Lions, complete with the controversial red collar. Limited to only 50 pieces, this Grogg was removed from production before the full quota had been reached, again making this a quite desirable and rare Grogg.
In 2011, Brian became the all time leading Try scorer in the Six Nations, again the Grogg shop honoured this achievement by updating his Grogg slightly, removing the traditional turn down collar in favour of the dog collar style which the team wore at that time and produced a limited run of just 25 pieces in a fully branded Irish kit. In the same year Leinster went on to win their second Heineken cup under Brian's Captaincy and a very low edition special 13 pieces was produced in the Leinster kit.
A further Heineken Cup was won in 2012 and another domestic league title was recorded in 2013 along with the Amlin European Challenge Cup title. Brian was then called up to the British Lions squad for the 2013 tour of Australia, this was his fourth tour with the lions and his first experience of a Lion's series win. The third version of O'Driscoll in a Lions shirt was produced to commemorate the fantastic achievements of the tourists, limited to 125 pieces.
This led to O'Driscoll's final season as a Rugby professional and he went out with a bang winning the domestic league with Leinster and helping Ireland to Six Nations victory. Brian's career produced 180 domestic caps and 311 points, 133 international caps and 245 points, 8 Lions caps and 5 points and 3 appearances for the Barbarians scoring 5 points and a wealth of domestic and international honours but there was still one more honour to come. Having sold out of the original Ireland O'Driscoll Grogg the shop decided to produce one more Grogg of this fantastic player, this time in recognition of him becoming the most capped player in International Rugby Union history with 141 caps.
So O'Driscoll has hung up his boots for the last time, the Groggshop have said their farewells and thanks with one final Grogg. But is the last we will see of Brian in Grogg form? Only Time will tell!
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