Baz & Andrew’s House of Rugby – Jean De Villiers and Ryan Baird

"But, again, John Hayes with hair. I've never seen that before. Totally threw me off!"

There has been some justifiable concern about when rugby can resume training and competitive action but, for a couple of hours at least, House of Rugby took our minds off that and provided some great laughs along the way. Jean De Villiers is opening up his house to Irish fans heading on the Lions Tour to South Africa (whenever that goes ahead), Ryan Baird has two sport-mad brothers hot on his heels and Barry Murphy is seeing aliens in a farmer's field in Limerick. Just an average Sunday evening during these wild and uncertain times. Week seven of remote recording for Baz & Andrew's House of Rugby saw De Villiers and Baird join us to chat with Barry Murphy and Andrew Trimble. De Villiers re-lived some of his best, and maddest, moments at Munster and took us through some of the highlights of his 100+ Test match career, which included a 2009 series win over the British & Irish Lions. Baird opened up on his break-through season with Leinster and how training with the senior Ireland squad was going before the Covid-19 pandemic put all sporting campaigns on hold. He also spoke about his biggest sporting inspirations:

"In rugby it was always Brian O’Driscoll and Paul O’Connell. They were the two big icons, back when I was younger and growing up. You would have followed them. "In other sports, like tennis, Rafael Nadal was a huge… I loved him when I was younger and I still do today. He was such a competitor. And Tiger Woods as well. Now that I’ve got slightly older, just appreciating what he does in the game… like he has 81 victories, you know. It’s unheard of. Just to see how he won so consistently was such a cool thing to see; it’s just incredible."

Also discussed on that show:

• Jean De Villiers' chats with RG Snyman and Damien De Allende before they signed for Munster
• How Ryan Baird is using mindfulness, meditation and sports psychology to aid his game
• Jean in stitches at the 'Munster Monsters' mash-up quiz
• Classic movie (The Truman Show), album (22, A Million by Bon Iver) and match (Ireland vs. Australia, Second Test, 2018) reviews.

WATCH THAT HOUSE OF RUGBY EPISODE HERE:

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SUBSCRIBE TO BAZ & ANDREW'S HOUSE OF RUGBY: https://playpodca.st/house-of-rugby-ie Springboks legend and former Munster star Jean De Villiers joins Barry and Andrew on House of Rugby from South Africa. Leinster lock Ryan Baird on his breakthrough season and learning from Scott Fardy & James Ryan.

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