'I don't think you can take on that defeatist mentality'

International rugby has not come easily for Tommy O'Donnell. What started in the summer of 2013 on Ireland's tour of North America has been fitful ever since. If he wasn't being overlooked by Joe Schmidt, then injury was saving the coach from explaining, for the benefit of the brave and the faithful, why the Tipperary man was getting close without getting his mitts on the cigar.