There was only ever going to be one outcome.
Unfortunately, we don’t get much insight anymore to the ongoings or craic that occurs during training sessions or rugby camps.
So often when players are interviewed during these occasions, we get the usual soundbites of looking forward to the next game, how the team have a big week on the training paddock to right the wrongs of the previous performance, or something along those lines anyway.
So when players retire, or when they are no longer a feature in a particular environment, such is the case with Donncha O’Callaghan with regards to Munster and Ireland, we finally get the opportunity to hear hilarious anecdotes of moments which occur during their careers.
On the latest episode of SportJOE’s rugby podcast, The Hard Yards, Donncha O’Callaghan and Ronan O’Gara began the show by recalling some of their times together for Munster and Ireland.
One particular occasion involves O’Callaghan’s persistent use of O’Gara’s toiletries, something which occurred over a 10 year period!
"There's the team environment and then there's the bedroom environment…" https://t.co/yM4B3bS4LK
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) March 20, 2017
However, as much as O’Gara couldn’t help but slag off his former teammate in this regard, he admitted that he wasn’t immune to criticism either.
“I think I went down in your estimation one day, remember for the rule that every player had to bring their own water bottle? We had a bleep test didn’t we?!”
O’Gara offers O’Callaghan the opportunity to recall the day he brought in a particular type of water to a fitness session which did not go down well with the rest of the squad.
“So one day we’re doing fitness and everyone has their own water bottle, so it’s a bottle of Ballygowan or Tipperary Water, whatever lads can grab you know?
So there’s our boy with a glass bottle of San Pellegrino, like something you would get in the finest restaurant in Cork. It’s like, there’s the difference with Rog, like, you know what I mean? The most expensive sparkling water you’d ever come across!”
O’Gara admits that he chose that particular bottle to get a laugh out of his teammates and it’s safe to say that it definitely raised a few eyebrows.
“There was obviously one on the floor of my car and the rule was you had to attend a session with the bottle and I wasn’t prepared, I was scrambling,” O’Gara said.
“So I just said ‘for a bit of a giggle, I’ll bring this in’ and the lads were like ‘oh my god what is he doing?!’ So after that it was like ‘well he has a sense of humour, he’s not that serious after all!’”
You can listen to the lads cracking themselves laughing about this from about seven minutes below.
