WHAT DO ESRI economists do in their spare time?

They use their number-crunching skills to determine just how important Brian O’Driscoll was to Ireland in the place it matters most, the scoreboard.

Between 1999 and 2014, O’Driscoll was worth 6.3 points, almost a converted try, to his country when playing.

While the authors - Pete Lunn and David Duffy – admit that this isn’t the best way to analyse the former Ireland captain, they do say it “acts as a first estimate and helps to highlight key aspects of Ireland’s overall performance”.

Against frontline opposition – the other Six Nations teams as well as New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina – O’Driscoll’s contribution was even greater being worth 6.6 points.

Another finding of the report, which you can read in full here, was that, while playing at home, Ireland’s chances of winning any game increased by 8-32% but the presence of O’Driscoll in the starting line-up increased those chances by 13-40%

Unfortunately, the question the authors don’t answer is just how you replace someone of O’Driscoll’s influence.

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