And like that he was gone. The Long Goodbye we had called it all season. The last game for Ireland in Dublin. The very last game for Ireland, in Paris. The last Heineken Cup appearance, which turned out to be in Toulon. And then this. The last game. Period.

Eight minutes and 36 seconds he lasted. Not once did he touch the ball before his calf caved. Not a word did he utter to the media afterwards. Like Keyser Soze walking out of the police station in the Usual Suspects, O’Driscoll simply melted away into the night.

Leinster’s press officer was overloaded with entreaties for a few words by reporters desperate for one last hit before the withdrawal symptoms kicked in, but the most famous face in a stadium jointed with nearly 20,000 people was nowhere to be found.

It was different last year when another favourite son, Jonathan Sexton, had fought to hold back the tears as he spoke about what it felt like to be upping sticks from Leinster for Paris after the Pro12 final defeat of Ulster.

Then again, it was a different sort of night.

Sexton had been at the apex of a six-point win, scoring 14 of Leinster’s 24 points, and it just so happened that he got collared by the press as he exited the team’s private lair.

Others stepped into the breach to speak for O’Driscoll on this occasion. Jamie Heaslip among them.

“He’s transcended rugby. You don’t get mentioned by President Obama every day of the week. It’s a credit to a guy who’s literally put his body on the line countless times over the years. We give him stick for milking it, but he deserves it.”

In truth, he had been in semi-retirement for months. The mind remained eager but the body was screaming ‘stop’. Twice in recent months, in Paris and in Toulon, he had been left motionless, rooted to the spot, as younger men zipped around him.

The muscle that did for him at the weekend had been a constant pain during the victorious Six Nations campaign. More and more of his time during training sessions was spent ticking over on the gym bike rather than out on the field.

Last week came and went without him gracing the training paddock even once. Ian Madigan stepped in at 12 in his absence and Gordon D’Arcy moved to outside centre, so when the injury flared again on Saturday Leinster had all their steps rehearsed.

Succession planning they call it in the business world.

O’Driscoll may have been the focus for most of those floating voters for whom rugby is an intermittent choice but it was always a tad unfair, if understandable, on those within the dressing room for whom this Pro12 campaign was their nine-to-five.

Injury, international duties and age limited O’Driscoll to just nine appearances in the competition this year. Sean Cronin, man of the match here, clocked well over one thousand minutes. So did Jimmy Gopperth and Ian Madigan.

None of that trio were on board when Leinster claimed the first of their seven trophies in the last seven seasons — the 2008 Magners League — proof the club is handling the loss of its golden generation pretty well, even if they have slipped slightly in Europe.

None of that is to say O’Driscoll wasn’t a part of this latest triumph.

His 15 years at the coalface earned him that lap of honour with Leo Cullen on Saturday.

The culture he helped establish looks like surviving his absence.

“It was a privilege to play alongside him,” said Gopperth. “When you finish your career you can look back and realise that you got to play with these great players and you can be very fulfilled and pretty happy that you played alongside a guy like this.

“Brian was pretty instrumental, not just on the field but off the field for Leinster Rugby. We spoke in-house [last week] about how important it was for Brian and Leo finishing as a player. We wanted to make sure that we were at our best to see them off on the right note.

“The note they deserved.”

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