The scene was Leinster's first team meeting with their summer Lions' contingent back on board. As is custom, mobile phones were strictly forbidden by Matt Williams, the Leinster coach regarding their switching off as symbolic of the change to the team ethic within the confines of the squad. Whereupon, within the first 10 seconds, a mobile rang. And again. And again. Somebody's going to pay hell for this, players pondered to themselves, as they looked around to locate the sound.

"Oh s***," blurted the guilty party.

"Welcome back, Mal," said Williams dryly, as the room burst into laughter. "We missed you."

There really is only one Malcolm O'Kelly, and you've got to take him as you find him. A one-off, he lives in his own world but it seems like a nice world, as someone once said of him. Seemingly laid back to the point of being horizontal, that and his almost sleepy demeanour mask a freakish talent, a bright mind and a sharp, quirky sense of humour. You'd struggle to meet nicer. Which made his dour demeanour long before the end of the Lions tour, and the transformation from optimistic O'Kelly to malcontent Malcolm all the more disappointing. Judged by his own ability, and what he's capable of, his tour was a relative failure, for which he has to be mainly culpable.

He's always been blessed with exceptional fitness and stamina levels, not to mention a natural athleticism and ball-playing ability. Nor could one ever doubt his heart, or the way he busts a gut for the cause. Yet, perhaps it always has come a bit too easily for him. Amongst the Lions' management and players there was a perception that O'Kelly didn't push himself hard enough in training, and was just too easy going off the pitch for his own good.

"That Lions thing gave me an indication of what's required sometimes. If I had really, really pushed myself," he begins, before admitting self-deprecatingly "well, it's not something I'm particularly good at. But maybe if I pushed myself that little bit harder and if I'd been harder on myself, it might have made a difference.

" I know Danny (Grewcock) was very disciplined, a lot more so than me, Scott (Murray) or Jeremy (Davidson). He really was in unbelievable condition. I kind of learnt what maybe is required when I see what other players do. So it's given me slightly higher standards."

Nonetheless, O'Kelly's failure to show a wider audience what he's truly capable of has to be viewed as partly a management failure as well. As a one-off he needs different handling. Constant, daily cajoling and encouragement according to some. Whatever buttons were pushed, if any were, they clearly weren't the right ones.

It's hard not to wonder if there were some pre-tour judgements of O'Kelly by one or all of the management, be it Donal Lenihan, Graham Henry, Andy Robinson or whomever, and that he really had little chance of making the Test team anyhow. That his peripheral presence became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In hindsight, he attributes his failure to make a bigger impression on tour to his performance in the Lions' defeat to Australia A, the fourth match of the tour and his second, after which he would only start again against the New South Wales Country Cockatoos.

"I put it down to one game, the Australia A game. You only get so many opportunities and a few little things went against me. I was picked out of position for one, which probably didn't help. And the type of play that Graham Henry was asking of us was slightly alien to me. It was alien to a lot of guys. Suited some, didn't suit others.

"But then, when I was switched out of position, on top of all the normal technical things I had to cope with, we didn't have much preparation. And then, of course, I don't think I played well."

In truth, this observer cannot recall O'Kelly ever playing worse. The ball doesn't come the way of a second row too often and it didn't help his cause that hardly a line-out or a restart was directed toward his vicinity, and one of the few passes that did get he spilled.

"I knocked on a ball. I had a good opportunity to break the line and something might have happened, but instead knocked it on," he recalls ruefully. So few chances. So few mistakes allowed.

That set the tone, and you remind him of the several penalties he gave away; the camera lingering on him accusingly after each crime, usually for "fringing". "Some you get away with, some you don't. He (the referee) was particularly anti-Lions, I thought, that day, and I was unfortunately there. But I remember Matt Williams telling me that that would be my downfall. If there was going to be a downfall it would be that I give away penalties. He knows the way I play.

"Each second row can do the job. Scott Murray could have done the job, I could have done the job, and as it happened Danny (Grewcock) did 'cos his defence was better than mine or Scott's. His line-outs probably weren't as good. That was hard to swallow as well, but that was their choice and you had to live with that."

In any event, he reckons, that Australia A game did for him. "I think that was it for me at that stage. I didn't exactly miss a tackle but there were a few defensive frailties in the game, and for some of them the finger was pointed at me. There was one particular one, an obvious tackle which I didn't quite get. These things go against you, and once you're dismissed that's it. After that they didn't have to worry about me. They had their team selected."

Rumours of poor communication were up and running from the first week of the tour, and thereafter O'Kelly was pretty much ignored. "Yeah, to be honest." Save for the training ground, where O'Kelly and others still had a duty. To impersonate Wallabies.

"It's a bit of a joke now," he says, laughing at how he and others adapted to their new status in life. "I was actually more John Eales than I was myself. But you're there for the greater good. You're just going through their line-outs and they're trying to defend them."

In the end, O'Kelly couldn't bottle it up any longer, and joined the ranks of the whingeing poms by publicly criticising the Lions' management for their modus operandi and the way they cut the dirt-trackers adrift. Heat of the moment? Something he regrets, given Lenihan was the manager? No, not really, for O'Kelly clearly believes it was better to go on the record about how he felt.

"I was particularly bitter because it was just after selection for the ACT match and I felt I had played quite well and deserved another chance. I went to the management and asked for a reason, and the reason I got I didn't think was very satisfactory or helpful in any way.

"I think after that I was particularly negative toward the management. In fairness, it was very tough to manage 37 players who were all internationals and all wanted to be selected, only to be playing second fiddle when they weren't quite used to it, and are proud people, so they weren't going to take it very well. But I think had they had a bit more diplomacy and been a bit more open, these articles wouldn't have happened."

O'Kelly stayed on in Australia for four weeks with his girlfriend, Stephanie, and doing a very Mal type of thing to do, hung out in Kakadu national park in Darwin, "outback territory" for a week, before working his way down from Cairns to Fraser Island.

By the time he returned to pre-season training with Leinster he was suitably refreshed. He could have responded to his summer travails by either withdrawing into himself and almost sulking or by rolling up his sleeves and showing people a thing or two. All the signs are that he's opted for the latter.

"He's a much better player for having gone on the (Lions) trip," says Williams. "His work ethic off the pitch is excellent. Everyone is commenting on it. He's now one of the ones looking for extra work, for the right thing to do in his weight training, and in injury prevention. His match stats have been first-rate, and he's only conceded two penalties in three starts and a couple of sub run-outs. This is his new standard."

One thing's for sure, his Lions' experience won't leave him irreparably scarred or even change him unduly. "Sport has its place, and it's great entertainment, and it's an absolute joy to be involved in it. I'd love to be doing this until I was 70. Unfortunately I can't. But there's greater things, probably not for me, but there are greater things out there."

There's been a change of focus, away from the individual needs of a Lions tour to the more collective needs of Leinster and Ireland. "I think now I've come to terms with the Lions. Personal performances are great and all, but I just want to be successful, to be honest. I want to be on teams that win."

To that end his personal duel with Scott Murray today is not only a meeting with a fellow malcontent from the tour, it's also one of the key head-to-heads of the game.

He's been looking forward to it for months. "Scott Murray has been regarded as one of the best line-out exponents," he says, adding "finally it's going to happen. It's going to be a good one."

This is a season for O'Kelly to show people a thing or two, beginning here. At 27 and with 30 caps under his belt, identical to long-time friend but only occasional partner Jeremy Davidson, he and they should be moving into the peak years.

With winning now what's most important to him, Leinster and Ireland have never looked so good. He's hungry, with points to prove and has rebounded from his Lions disappointment.

Soon, you sense, Mal will be content.