Stuart Barnes’ commentary has been a surprisingly pleasant aspect of TV3’s coverage but his jingoistic support of Ireland has been picked up on by his colleagues.
Before kick-off the former England fly-half suggested Ireland were the new host nation due to their huge levels of support and England’s early elimination.
Perhaps he was getting a bit ahead of himself, Stuart Lancaster’s men do have the small (and inconsequential) matter of a final pool game to play against Uruguay on Saturday.
Stuart Barnes just declared Ireland the new host nation. After last night I'm not sure if he meant it as a compliment or a curse. #IREvITA
— Colm Flynn (@colmflynn) October 4, 2015
However, there is no doubt Barnes is getting behind Joe Schmidt’s men, to such an extent that TV3’s commentator Conor McNamara jokingly referred to him as “Stuart O’Barnes”.
With Ireland leading by just four points and Italy in the ascendancy halfway through the second half Barnes asked McNamara and fellow analyst Liam Toland if they were “nervous at all”.
“Not as nervous as England were last night,” replied McNamara. “Great to have Stuart O’Barnes with us for the rest of the tournament.”
Conor Mcnamara and Stuart Barnes joshing in the commentary box. Barnes really wants to jump on our rickety bandwagon pic.twitter.com/4wMsozWXSi
— Mikey Stafford (@me_stafford) October 4, 2015
