Brian O'Driscoll believes Ireland are in "reasonable shape" after a challenging Six Nations which saw Joe Schmidt's side ultimately finish third in the table.
Off The Ball's premier rugby correspondent was joined on tonight's show by Liam Toland to reflect on the final game against Scotland as well as the wider tournament.
"I think we're in reasonable shape all things considered. It's been a very different tournament. We lost one of the biggest leaders the country's ever seen. That was obviously going to have a big impact, not only from the playing point of view but also from a captaincy point of view. And then we lost a number of leading figures within that team," he said, adding that on reflection when taking into account the tough schedule and other factors, "there's a lot of good still to be taken from it".
He added that "we have lots of reason to be positive heading into the summer".
The former Ireland centre also went into detail about the issue of skill sets in Northern Hemisphere rugby, and also talked about how he should have been a better than he was during his own career.
Meanwhile, amid accusations of play-acting being aimed at Jonathan Sexton by commentators and players abroad after the Scotland match, Brian said that knowing his former team-mate well, he says the Leinster out-half is not the type of player to feign injury and deserves to be given the benefit of the doubt.
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