THE OFF THE Ball crew were in Limerick last night as they hosted a pre-Six Nations roadshow in the heart of Munster rugby.
Among the stellar line-up of guests were Brian O’Driscoll, Keith Wood and former Welsh and Lions scrum-half Dwayne Peel – and there were certainly no shortage of tales told during the broadcast.
O’Driscoll and Peel, who were on the 2005 Lions tour to New Zealand together, lifted the lid on Gavin Henson to tell three priceless anecdotes, including a revelation about his pre-game grooming routine.
But the highlight of the show was the story, as told by O’Driscoll and Wood, of the former beating the crap out of Austin Healey in the dressing room during the 2001 tour.
The incident followed the tourist’s game against the New South Wales Waratahs, a fixture remembered for the disgraceful thumping Duncan McRae gave Ronan O’Gara.
The young Munster out-half was left bloodied and bruised and O’Driscoll took exception to Healy making fun of his compatriot in the dressing room afterwards.
Here’s what happened next.
“It was actually after Duncan McRae beat the crap out of [Ronan O'Gara] in that game. It was just lunacy,” Wood explained on Newstalk.
“He just lost it on the field. Austin came in. He was being an unbelievable pain in the arse, beyond all belief. He was touching ROG’s face. He said ‘come on, ROG, let’s have a little boxing match’.
“ROG has got really delicate skin, he’s got all bruises, cuts and scratches and he’s miserable and ROG just said ‘piss off, leave me alone, just get away from me.’”
“Suddenly this little voice, peeps in. ‘I’ll have a bit of that,’ says Drico. They put on a pair of boxing gloves and Drico beat the living crap out of him.’”
O’Driscoll intervened and picked up the story from there.
“I might have been a young lad but because I was good friend with ROG, I just thought that’s not on and I kind of said it before I thought about what I was doing and all of a sudden the next thing I realise there were gloves on and there was a ring being made around us and I could tell people were only on one person’s side and that was including all of the English players,” he continued.
“It was one of those out of body moments where all of a sudden you realise you’ve got a little bit of boxing technique and I started landing some shots and he started getting frustrated and started throwing haymakers and I ducked him.
“I was catching him with little kidney punches. It was one of those dream situations. I called it quits at the right time as well.”
Fair play to ya Chris,don’t be afraid to fail , hope Wales go all the way.
They need to scrap that poxy yellow card rule , to many players are missing huge games for silly yellow cards . That ref was trigger happy with his cards , poor Ramsey gonna miss this biggest game of gis life for an accidental handball ,bullshit
Considering the length of this tournament, should have been an amnesty by the semi’s….. Stupid rules….
Crazy that there’s no amnesty.
Yellow Cards in consecutive games should result in a one match ban….. Other than that they shouldn’t count. Very harsh. He was brilliant today…..
Agree Ryan,he should at least be able to appeal it.
Totally agree. No way should you miss a semi or final..carry it forward and maybe make it a 2 game ban for next qualifying tournament? ??-
Belgium : A country that bottles great beer and big tournaments. Fair play to Wales.
England to sign up Colman in £10 million deal.
Emotional Cookie-monster motivates an entire country. Sports people of all grades appreciate the hard work that goes into creating the winning team effort. That was a proud moment for our Celtic comrades!!
Bale vs Ronaldo Semi-final… can’t wait
Team player v me feiner
I really hope they go all the way
Portugal have really rode their luck in their last 2 games and have not been at all impressive…. Wales have every chance….. could they repeat Denmark and Greece as being underdog champions? Either way I fancy them against Portugal.
Amazing amazing achievement by Wales which kind of puts were we are as a football team into perspective. Look at how they beat Belgium- playing football & not in anyway hanging on. We on the other hand seem to have this slight sense of euphoria about the euros yet we literally can’t play football. Still long ball rubbish. The sense is that we are on the right track – we’re not. And the media is still on about how great our fans are. Some joke.
Fair play to Wales. We have vastly improved since the last tournament. no disrespect to Brady but she’s a not Bail.
damn autocorrect. Brady is not Bail
Well england were you watching…??.I rest my case!!
What case is that?