ROSS O'CARROLL-KELLY may be sleeping in the gutter, but he's looking up at Leinster's three stars.
“WHAT?” CHRISTIAN goes. In fact all the goys are pretty taken aback?
I’m like, “Yeah, they wouldn’t let my daughter on the flight. She was being a bit of a wagon to one of the air hostesses.”
Except that’s not why they’re looking at me with their mouths slung open like four elephants waiting for buns.
“Let me get this straight,” JP goes. “You doubled back when you reached Duty Free, told Sorcha you were going to give the air hostess a piece of your mind . . . Then you got on the flight without her?”
I’m there, “Hey, I’ve never made any secret of the way I feel about this Leinster team. I’ve made sacrifices for them before and I’ll make sacrifices for them again. End of.”
This is us in a pub in Covent Gorden, by the way, three hours before kick-off.
I whip out my phone. Forty-seven missed calls. I’ll say this for my soon to be ex-wife – she’s persistent. That’s the Mountie in her. Aut viam inveniam aut faciam, as it said on the cover of her yearbook.
I don’t bother listening to any of her voice messages. I can imagine the general flavour of them. But I do check out the last text message she sent me – we’re talking, like, half an hour ago?
The goys can tell from my expression that something’s obviously wrong. They’re all going, “What is it?”
I’m like, “Firstly, she says she’s never going to forgive me for this. Which is, like, whatever? And secondly . . . she’s got my match ticket in her handbag.”
There’s huge amusement about this – not just among my so-called friends either. The story of my little dummy and sidestep routine at Dublin airport has already been passed around the couple of hundred Leinster fans in the pub and they’re all loving this latest twist. The vibe is very much one of, ‘The goy’s a definite legend – how’s he going to play this one?’
Er, using the wonders of modern technology, of course! I get on Twitter, then literally half an hour later, I’m on Shaftesbury Avenue meeting a dude from a place called Drogheda – oh, it exists, Google it yourselves – who just so happens to have a ticket to sell. I end up having to give him a grand for it as well. Like I said – sacrifices.
Then we hit Twickers.
Fionn, JP, Christian and Oisinn head off in one direction, then I go off in another to try to find my seat. It’s only after I climb the steps up into the stand that I realise – with a fright that almost empties my bowels – that my seat is among the Ulster fans.
I don’t even need a steward to tell me where I’m sitting. I can actually see it. One empty seat in this, like, ocean of white jerseys.
I can do one of two things here. I can leave now and watch the match in some local battle cruiser. Or I can face down the hostile crowd like I used to back in my Senior Cup days.
Of course you can imagine the crack among the Ulster fans when I stort making my way down the line towards my seat in my Leinster colours and my blue and white jester hat. It’s all, “Och, look at this wee jawker,” and, “Yee lawst, son?”
It’s all good-natured slagging – it’s very much banter o’clock – until someone suddenly notices my jersey.
After the quarter-final victory over Cordiff, as a mork of confidence that another European Cup was in the basic bag, I asked a girl of my occasional acquaintance to go ahead and sew the third stor above the logo on my Leinster jersey. Some people might see that as arrogance. The six-foot-focking-ten dude sitting beside me is certainly of that view.
“Teak that off yee,” he goes. “Noy.”
I’m there, “I can’t take it off. I’ll focking freeze.”
“We’ll gat yee somethun else tee worr. But yee’re nat wearing thot.”
So I end up having to peel the jersey off me – the jester hat’s long gone, by the way – and I’m sitting there naked from the waist up. He hands me something. It’s an Ulster jersey.
I go, “Dude, I don’t mean any disrespect to your people, but I will not wear those colours.”
He just nods and goes, “Lat me knaw if yee cheenge yeer maind.”
It’s focking freezing. “It’s the cawldest Mee on rackard,” as someone behind me points out. But still I refuse to take the jersey they keep offering to me.
The match goes exactly the way I expected. The goys run in five tries while I end up nearly dying of exposure in my seat.
But this I have to say. You can hear the growing respect among the Ulster fans, not just for Leinster’s performance, but also for the resilience of their 16th man.
They’re, like, alternating their comments about the match – “Breeno Thraskell’s pleen ite of his skan” – with lines about me: “Hoy’s he stell alave?” and, “Loves his team – fear plea tee hum.”
They’re even giving me nips out of their hipflasks and telling me I’m a hordy mawn. The final whistle goes. My body is so cold you could hang a couple of wet duffle coats off my nipples. The dude beside me hands me back my Leinster jersey.
“Ay’ve navver seen support lake thot,” he goes. “Hov a greet nate.”
They literally applaud me out of my seat. Tonight, I will drink a gallon of hot whiskey. Tomorrow, I’ll wake up in the gutter. But some of us will be looking at three stars.