Interview/Johnny O'Connor: Gerry Thornley talks to Ireland's dynamic flanker who wants to become as constructive a force in the team's game plan as he is destructive and disruptive to the opposition

He brings a bit of the wild, wild west to the Irish mix. Anyone his size who continually throws his body into tackles and puts his frame where most would fear to tread, you'd imagine to be slightly madcap. But team-mates talk of a quiet man, deep in thought and self-motivation. "Always be wary of the quiet ones," says Reggie Corrigan of the new tearaway.

You sense they're all still a bit puzzled by him. He's the new kid on the block. He's had his doubters, worked his fingers to the bone, been regularly hauled off, but against the English and French was tackling and poaching until the bitter end.

His uncanny radar for the breakdown saw him win a couple of clean turnovers and force three more turnover penalties for French ball-carriers not releasing after the tackle.

He's harder on himself than any outside critic. Yes, he's done good defensive work, but he wants to link up Ireland's running game more in the way we've seen him do it for Wasps.

"Yeah, I've done well destructively, I just want to get constructive as well," remained his mantra during the week. "I'm itching to go and I'm itching to keep on improving at the moment, I really am. My lungs aren't going on me halfway through a game, and I think I'm more composed in a game. I know what my next job is and I know exactly what I'm doing."

The legend of the Johnny O'Concrete story is he was a wild boy from the west, getting himself expelled from schools. He doesn't do much to dispel the theory. His grandmother hails from the Aran Islands and his mother, Helen, who grew up in Mervue, is fluent in Irish. He grew up in Claregalway before his family relocated to Galway; his father Peter came from Oranmore. Summers were spent in Westport, and still are.

The youngest of four behind Simon, David and Emma, he had no family links to rugby, but at eight he took up the game in Corinthians' underage set-up, developing his skills at Garbally College, though he took a circuitous route there and didn't last the course, as if some fickle force was at work.

"My schooldays were some laugh," he says, unable to smile at the memory. "I went to Enda's in my first year but I was kind of a lunatic to be honest with you, so I made a decision with my parents - I don't know what I was thinking - that I'd go off to boarding school (Garbally) for a while.

"By the time fifth year came I had a really good summer. I started meeting girls and stuff like that so I decided I didn't like boarding school anymore. I wasn't too long getting thrown out of the place. I think I made plenty of mistakes when I was younger so it's shaped me a lot better than some people who make mistakes later in life, so I'm happy I did them then."

He spent a year at Park College, bunked off a year to work with his dad as a builder. He completed his leaving at Yeates College, before giving up on construction studies at the RTC within a few months. He'd won a junior and senior cup medal with Garbally, and would also switch clubs from Corinthians to Galwegians when breaking into the Connacht set-up. To all intents and purposes, he became a full-time rugby player at 19.

"I was right on the poverty line though. I was living with a mate of mine, Ian McDonald, who had his own house, and another mate, Dave Dornan, an ex-US marine. It was great craic and the lads looked after me really well."

It was as much a case of drifting along as being caught by the rugby bug. "I'll probably drift along when I'm older. I'm not mad to make a million dollars. Some people describe that as success in life. I dunno whether it is to me. I'm happy enough doing whatever."

He loves the confrontation rugby provides and the enjoyment of winning. "When I was with Connacht I almost liked us being underdogs all the time, because it always gave you that extra lift. You knew you had to be on top of your game. I found it quite strange at Wasps winning all the time. It was something I had to adapt to. But the Connacht lads have changed it around, and that's no thanks to me."

When he first travelled to Dublin for Ireland sessions with Eric Elwood, he was in awe of the players around him. There was also a little voice inside him saying he needed to go where he knew nobody. He had a choice of Wasps or Harlequins, but Warren Gatland's presence swayed him to the former.

Lawrence Dallaglio has been a profound influence, as much off the pitch as on. A ruptured Achilles forced O'Connor to sit out the latter half of Wasps' double-winning season, but to have access to the dressingroom was to witness Dallaglio's pre-match rallying calls.

"They were right off a movie script. You just wonder 'where's he getting this stuff from?'"

Five-and-a-half months was a swift recovery, although he was shocked to be picked against South Africa for his debut last November after just nine comeback games. Bursting with excitement, he ran wildly for the first 20 minutes of that first Test. "With calmness you get focused at this level, and I think I'm beginning to find that, rather than just running back and forth, back and forth. I got into it slowly and got a nice hit just before half-time."

He bridles at the oft-held view he's a small man in a big man's game, pointing out his weight is about a kilo shy of Simon Easterby's and akin to Serge Betsen's. "I'm rangy, peg-legged, and that's a factor," he says self-deprecatingly.

The drive comes from the bloodline. Smiling throughout the interview, delivering rapid-fire answers, this is the one time his voice slows a little.

"My family have gone through hard times and good times like most. My dad had a bad crash years ago, and he fought through it. The cards were down for us as a family a few years ago but we've come through it with flying colours." He stresses he was always well supported by his parents, not least in his rugby career, and whatever he wanted he got. His pride in them being at Lansdowne Road to see their little Johnny play is palpable.

Tied to his roots, he envisages returning to Connacht but might stay another year at Wasps. "I'm not sure of what I'll do yet." The future can wait.

As with any questions about the Lions, winning today is everything.

Today's "occasion" for the young tearaway will be something else, not least when the Welsh crowd start to lift the roof for the pre-match anthems.

"Some days I'm as calm as calm can be. Some days I'm rarin' to go, I'm an absolute lunatic, but I'm beginning to find a bit of calmness before games. I get quite emotional, a lot of things go through my mind about family and friends. The things that matter. But once the anthems are over I'm rarin' to go."

He returns to the mantra of being constructive as well as destructive. "The more people who put me down, the more I'll look to rise up to it." He desperately wants to show there's more to his game.

A man on a mission, with tunnel vision.