Two weeks ago the cream of Irish rugby gathered at the Double Tree on Burlington Road for the 12th annual IRUPA awards, but this footage just been brought to out attention. For the record, Andrew Trimble picked up the Players' Player of the Year award.
The quick-fire 'teammate questions' format usually doesn't throw up anything particularly interesting, with players cautiously straight-batting questions in the dazed manner of downed fighter pilots on Iraqi state television.
Luckily for IRUPA, though, Donncha O'Callaghan was on hand to bring some life to proceedings. He was at the bash to receive the haughtily-titled 'Contribution to Society' award, in recognition for his work with Unicef. Instead of just bleating cursory, controversy-free responses, he took the time to explain each of his choices.
It's probably just as well that the gong wasn't presented on the floor of the UN General Assembly, which may have allowed the gregarious Corkonian to come out with such diplomatically risky contributions such as "Dictator most likely to cry at a state funeral? Hmmm, Kim Jong-un? He has a tender face."
Speaking of hard men being moved to ears, just listen out for his answer to a similar question, where he suggests that Paul O'Connell would cry if he watched "an episode of Bambi". A what? I didn't know there was a spin-off to the classic blub-fest - did the wonky-legged fawn mourn the shooting of a loved one every week, like a delicious, venison-based Love/Hate?
Anyway here's the rest of the lads' answers for comparison, so you can get a good idea of who the near-unanimous choices were for certain questions. It's not exactly surprising where where Rob Kearney and Mike Ross came out on top, but there's a bit of variation in some other categories, often based on provincial familiarity.
We can't be sure that the rest of the guys didn't give as much explanation for their choices as O'Callaghan, but we can safely assume that international retirement has allowed him a certain freedom to engage in a bit of colourful detail and wanton piss-taking. What a man.
H/T: Andy Wilson
