Brian O'Driscoll slams Irish rugby fans that need to take a "hard look" at themselves

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Hard look.

Former Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll believes some Irish fans need to take a "hard look" at themselves because of the arrogance that he believes is creeping into the Emerald Isle.

The men in green have enjoyed unprecedented success in recent years with an historic three Six Nations title in a row in their sights but it wasn’t that long ago Ireland were languishing down the bottom of the table.

While they are yet to find success at the Rugby World Cup, they have arguably been the most dominant force in rugby over the last few seasons and O’Driscoll believes this has resulted in a section of the fan base getting carried away.

"For sure, not like maybe," O'Driscoll told RTE when asked about Irish arrogance.

"We’re not in a good place to make a decision ourselves on how we are as a team that’s going well, it’s other people who will make that decision on our behalf.

"You have to remember, with teams that have gone well, and Leinster would be the same, I don’t think there’s much love for Leinster across Europe. People will say that's because the fans are hard to deal with.

"I hear that from my [ITV] work colleagues over in the UK, there’s not much love for Leinster and there’s less and less love for Ireland around being good winners. It’s hard for teams to enjoy very successful teams.

"Saracens, before all the s**t hit the fan with them were never adored as a team in England, but they were wildly successful for a period of time. That just happens, successful teams will not be loved. People get a bit fed up with it.

"I don’t see it a huge amount, but just from word of mouth, there are things that are put out on social media and conversations that don’t showcase the best of us, certainly don’t help our case of saying, ‘no, we’re humble winners.'

"So we have to be mindful of it. We’ve said the same about everybody else: 'Scotland getting ahead of themselves, Wales being hard work, oh, England being arrogant'.

"I think we might need to internalise an awful lot of that and have a good hard look at ourselves. I saw the article in the Telegraph the other day [asking] are Ireland a hard team to enjoy? Are they getting ahead of themselves?

"I would say, the supporters, yes, the team, absolutely not."

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