Search icon

Rugby

21st Aug 2023

“I want no part in this!” – Mack Hansen wanted to go further with Keith Earls tribute

Patrick McCarry

“What a horrendous job they’d done on it.”

Mack Hansen paid tribute to ‘The GOAT’ Keith Earls, on Friday, with one of the crudest haircuts we have seen in some time.

The Connacht winger wanted to do something to mark the occasion of Earls reaching 100 Test caps and, with his body filling up on tattoos, looked to do so with a hairstyle… or cut.

Following his 100th Test outing, in Ireland’s 29-10 win over England, Earls revealed that Hansen wanted to go even further than the resulting haircut he ended up with. He also outed Munster scrumhalf Craig Casey as one of the lads winding Hansen up to let him go.

Mack HansenMack Hansen walks out with ‘K.E’ shaved into his hair for teammate Keith Earls during an Ireland rugby captain’s run at the Aviva Stadium. (Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile)

Keith Earls on Mack Hansen haircut

Keith Earls smiled broadly, on Saturday evening, when Mack Hansen’s green hair and shave job was brought up by a reporter.

“Yeah, he actually came into the team room with just his hair dyed green and then he got this idea, he wanted to cut a shamrock into the side of his head,” said Earls.

“He went to get his hair shaved, and he was like, ‘Let’s get K.E 100 into the back of my head’.

“I was sitting in the team room and I was like, ‘I want no part in this!’ and walked away.”

Earls later received a message from Craig Casey with the finished effort – it was crude and beautiful. Earls had other words for it.

“And what a horrendous job they’d done on it!” he remarked.

“But that man, he’s such a unique character in rugby and you just have to leave him be. When you can act like that, cut your hair like that and grow a beard like that and then go and perform like that, you just have to leave him be. He’s a unique guy.”

BRIAN O’DRISCOLL ON FIRST CALL-UPS AND CAREER HIGHS:

Related articles:

 

The FootballJOE quiz: Were you paying attention? – episode 10