The players then got themselves psyched to do the business and were backed by a raucous 58,000 who partied at Eden Park on Saturday night before painting Auckland green.
O'Driscoll said the jersey ceremony had been emotional and unforgettable.
"I just think we were mentally in a place where we felt we owed ourselves a big performance," O'Driscoll said. "As much as we owed the Irish public one, we owed ourselves one first and foremost."
While the Irish fervour ignited the side, they played with clarity rather than emotional lawlessness.
They used their passion to drive their bodies for one last tackle, to smash into another ruck and to maintain the squeeze on the Wallabies.
O'Driscoll, like other seasoned men in the team - midfield partner Gordon D'Arcy, locks Paul O'Connell and Donncha O'Callaghan and five-eighths Ronan O'Gara - have been to the World Cup wells before and never slaked their thirst. Five times Ireland have been to the World Cup quarterfinals and no further.
Five times they have played the Wallabies in World Cups and eventually, at Eden Park on Saturday, they triumphed.
Wallaby coach Robbie Deans and novice skipper James Horwill were numbed and conversationally brief in their assessments. Their body language displayed shock and uncertainty.
Their path through the tournament had hit a roadblock.
On the back of a rugged, hard-working pack, Ireland showed a thou-shalt-not pass attitude to the Wallaby gunslingers. It was close.
Several times Will Genia engineered chances which were just halted; Kurtley Beale, too, was claimed by his jersey tails. That sort of Irish desperation got them home. And a scrum which had too much heat, and work at the breakdown, where opensider Sean O'Brien in particular was a standout.
While the Wallabies rued the late injury defection of David Pocock, O'Brien clattered around the field with such impact, you wondered if a fit Pocock would have matched him.
Up front the powerful front row of Cian Healy, Rory Best and Mike Ross put the skids under the Wallaby scrum and the back five applied the shunt.
Genia had a close-up view of the drama.
"I think they probably won that game in the scrum," he said. "Every time they got a penalty from it within kicking range they got the three points. I mean if you take the scrum out of the equation maybe it would be a different story."
But it was the same old saga for the Wallabies, who looked to have corrected most scrum issues in the Tri-Nations and against Italy in their World Cup opener.
Ireland debunked that theory and halves Eoin Reddan, Jonathan Sexton and O'Gara were able to kick for territory where the mistakes came and penalties were claimed.
O'Driscoll said the mentality was about playing to the final whistle from Bryce Lawrence rather than defending a lead.
Victory was a huge result but it had to be a stepping stone to a level of consistency because Ireland had struggled with that in recent times.
"It was a good win," O'Driscoll said with a note of caution. "But I am not sitting here with the Webb Ellis here beside me, you know.
"We are in a pool stage and we have to get four wins. It's great because we have done something we have not done before but let's not oversell it. It's a means to an end, we want to enjoy it for the moment but not get lost in the moment."
