IN retirement, Brian O'Driscoll is busier than ever as he tells STEVE CARROLL on a visit to the Minster city.

LEGEND. A word that has been stripped of all meaning thanks to a million hashtags and thousands of hyped headlines.

Let's reclaim it.

Stand up Brian O'Driscoll.

Here is a man who changed his sport. From outside centre, the 35-year-old re-defined how the position was played.

An astonishing attacker in his prime - just look again at his try for the British & Irish Lions in the first test against Australia in 2001 - he was also a colossus in defence.

A devastating tackler that only increased in ferocity once the zip started to fade from his legs.

He's the most capped player in union history. No-one has scored more tries for Ireland. He is the highest scoring centre of all-time. He went on four Lions tours.

He has won a Grand Slam, two Six Nations Championships, four Triple Crowns, four Celtic Leagues and three Heineken Cups.

It's why, when he was announced as the star attraction at this year's York Sportsman's Lunch at York Racecourse, the event sold out in double quick time.

No need for advertisement.

Consider that he followed a studded list that included England World Cup winning captain Martin Johnson and his cohort in Sydney glory Lawrence Dallaglio, South Africa's Rainbow nation warrior Francois Pienaar and Wallaby try-scoring machine David Campese and you start to get a sense of how the Dubliner is viewed.

It is a place in history the modest O'Driscoll, who described York as "a beautiful city", is delighted to have secured.

"This is a big event and, having spoken to a couple of the guys who have been here before, I know how big it is and how it is something that goes in the calendar in a lot of people's worlds very early on in the year," he said. "It's an immovable object.

"It's nice to have your name associated with some of that company - the likes of Sean Fitzpatrick, Francois Pienaar, Lawrence Dallaglio and so on. It's lovely to give people a bit of insight into things they might not know about you as a player, as a person growing up."

With enough memories of glory to occupy many an evening reminiscing by a log fire, O'Driscoll could have been forgiven for taking things easy in retirement.

But far from happy donning pipe and slippers, O'Driscoll has merely said 'What's next?' He has taken to punditry on BT sport to great acclaim, while the past few weeks have been spent promoting autobiography The Test.

"It is different. I am still kind of adjusting to it," he added of hanging up his boots. "Since my retirement, getting my book done and dusted and over the line and promoting it the past few weeks has pretty much taken over most of my time - along with the bit of work I am doing for BT, the radio show and I have got a couple of businesses at home.

"I've probably been busier than ever.

"Ideally, in a perfect world, I would have had a little bit more time off over the summer. The book took a bit more work, because of circumstances, and so that did hijack my summer a little bit. It have been nice to have chilled out and gone away for two or three months but it didn't happen and I am just getting on with the next phase of life and looking forward to it.

"People talk about reflecting and when do you reflect? When you are in bed? You remember the good days and when you see pictures of them or the old footage of victories - winning Heineken Cups or the Grand Slam and seeing the smiles on team-mates faces and knowing the laughs you had and remembering the good nights - then you reflect on them the whole time.

"But, from a career point of view, I don't pull it apart. It was what it was.

"When you are living it, you just want to achieve more and more and more - as much as you can because you realise there is a finite period of time that you are a rugby player before your body is on the wane or someone else comes along and replaces you.

"I was pretty conscious of living in the moment while I was doing it. When I broke on the scene when I was 20 years of age I never anticipated it happening at a such age like that.

"You just go with the flow and you enjoy what's coming next and you have adversity and you work through that and, ideally, you come out of the side of it."

Scoring a hat-trick in 2000 as Ireland won in France for the first time since 1972, O'Driscoll soared to prominence down under with the Lions the following year.

It was a "big moment", but not his favourite.

He explained: "That would be one of the fond memories because you grow up on Lions rugby, particularly after that 1997 tour.

"The Lions were huge and it really got enormous in 2001. All of a sudden, having watched it and being in school in '97, to be playing in the next Test yourself, was a surreal thing that happens to you.

"(But) I think it was probably the Grand Slam (in 2009), because we hadn't won one in 61 years. We had finished second five or six times through the 2000s in the Six Nations and then to finally win one, and knowing you would always have one, was pretty sweet.

"The Heineken Cups were big and, even the Championship just gone, was big. But we didn't do it in World Cups and the next big thing is a Grand Slam."

Perhaps it was fitting that such a career ended in glorious fashion, the Six Nations secured once again following another famous win in Paris. As O'Driscoll steps into the next phase of his life, he is acutely aware of how it all turned out.

"It was great," he concluded. "It kind of really started for me in Paris in 2000 - scoring a hat-trick - and for it to finish the way it did in Paris too was very, very special.

"To go out in a winning Irish jersey and winning silverware, very few people get the chance to do that. I consider myself very fortunate."