5. Rugby Briefs
No, these are not brief stories about rugby; they are stories about rugby briefs.
Israel Folau is not as happy as people imagine he is about his salary and top up, and he’s had to think about how to earn some extra coin. He’s already got a part-time job as a bouncer at Rugby HQ and now he’s making money with his backside.
It’s not what you think: he is a male model for a brand of undies and he has to wear a pair of rugby shorts a size too large so that if he gets tackled around his hips there is every chance his shorts will be lowered and there will be the jocks with the advertising on the back.
Too far-fetched? Not at all. He was tackled on Saturday in Round 7 and down came the shorts and you could see the undies with the logo across his bum.
Not everybody is happy about this and there is a bit of jealousy amongst the players about how he can get a gig like that when they reckon their booty is every bit as attractive as Folau’s is, any day.
Cricketers who don’t have a bat sponsor take the labels off their bats, and some rugby players around the country are refusing to wear undies at all. Why give the makers of underpants free advertising if they lose their daks??
So when Tevita Kuridrani got his shorts pulled down when the Brumbies were in Sydney for Round 6 all you could see was skin.
Lock Donncha O’Callaghan of Munster and Ireland would be kicking himself for not signing up with an underpants sponsor as Folau did. He had big chance for exposure when he got his shorts nearly ripped off him in 2006 when playing for Munster on a rainy day in Cardiff.
This didn’t faze the affable DOC one bit: he removed the damaged garment and sauntered over to the lineout in his jocks, red of course: the Munster colours. He crouched down to jump and his two lifters looked at each other—neither was enthusiastic about what they would face when he was elevated.
But the referee ordered the trainers to bring on some shorts, because something may have fallen out of the jocks when he was hoisted. The girls in the crowd were not happy. DOC did a quick change then went to the lineout and his Lion’s team mate Paul O’Connell called him to receive the ball—and he dropped it.
O’Callaghan is a renowned Munster jokester, but never ask him about incident involving the ducks.
He is still playing reguarly, but the red jocks have been retired: they are now in the museum at Thomond Park, Munster’s home ground. Hopefully they rinsed them out before they put them on display but you never know with the Irish: they like to be authentic.
