Keith Earls joined Patrick Kielty on the Late Late Show as he discussed life post-rugby and explained the viral photo of him and Peter O’Mahony on a bike.
Speaking to Kielty on the RTE show, Earls told a hilarious story about Ireland’s Finlay Bealham.
“I don’t know if we have enough time to explain it but basically where we were staying on tour we had access to bikes myself, Peter O’Mahony and Dave Kilcoyne, we had Wednesday and Thursday afternoon off and the three of us would go down and try and solve the world’s problems,” Earls said.
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“It was basically me being a therapist for Dave Kilcoyne. We were down the town one day and he (Finlay Bealham) texted saying he was off getting his cornrows done for the game.
“We met him and he was like ‘I’ve never told anyone this but I can’t cycle’ and he was like ‘No I’m just a really nervous cycler’ and I said get on we’re going to a restaurant.
“I was on the bike, had to jump off for my own safety it was like being with my five-year-old daughter he was screeching at parked cars wobbling all over the place so I was like I’ll jump on with Peter O’ Mahony and be a lot safer and I was doing the satnav.
“That’s how we knew there was Irish in town because the photo went viral. But you can hear Finlay shouting in the background ‘Help please, why’s there cars?’
Earls also went on to explain his disappointment at Ireland’s exit from the Rugby World Cup.
lads but we failed even though we wanted to inspire the nation but ultimately we failed.
“That’s the reality of professional sports. We wanted to go out and win it, we felt, as Irish teams in the past we would have been scared, but we felt we had the right ingredients but a team like New Zealand will punish you,” Earls said.
“It was emotional. We had some special times together. There was lots of tears from a bunch of macho men.”
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