Rugby convert has a laugh as famous five go to Lille

CELEBRITY FANS/Pat Shortt: When did you start following rugby?I was never a huge fan of rugby when I grew up in Thurles. I really got into rugby when I came to Limerick; when I was 18. As anyone will tell you when you come to Limerick – no matter who you are or what your background is – you'll eventually end up screaming your lungs off in Thomond Park. You can't avoid it. Everyone is talking about it non-stop.

You started following rugby in 1986. Do you understand the game?

No (laughs). A very good friend of mine, Arthur, is a referee and so is another friend, Johnny Lacey, who played for Munster. I know the lads well – Alan Quinlan is a good friend going back years so is Frankie Sheahan. Dessie Clohessy would be one of the lads I’d go drinking with as well. I’d know Peter, his brother, and all the lads. But to say do I know the game – no, I don’t.

I’m still asking questions about what’s going on. I know the obvious stuff – I know the backs are the forwards and the forwards are the backs (laughs), but if a tackle happened and there’s a decision made by the referee, I’d go, ‘What the feck was that about?’ One of the lads would explain, and you’d be hearing new explanations all the time. But I enjoy the game no end.

Did you ever play?

No. I got into tag rugby a bit because Johnny Lacey is very much involved in it.

What’s your favourite position?

What are you implying at all? (laughs). I thought it was just rugby we were talking about.

Who is your favourite player?

Alan Quinlan now that Frankie Sheahan has retired (laughs).

Who is your favourite team?

Munster.

What was the most enjoyable Munster match you went to?

The Lille trip in 2001 was the best trip of my life. We went over in a camper van; the thing broke down on our second day, from the ferry to Lille.

We got towed into a small village somewhere and we spent two nights there before the match. I had to go down to Rouen to rent a car.

We left the camper van at a garage. They couldn’t get it fixed there so they were going to leave it to some other garage.

When we got to Lille one of the boys pulled the keys of the camper van out of his pocket so we realised they couldn’t have been able to move it.

We said, ‘Ah, feck it, we’re booked in for two nights we’ll throw them back the keys in a couple of days.’

When we got back to the village, they got the car over to the new garage. We went away for two days. When we came back, they told us they couldn’t get the part – it was the clutch was broken – that they were looking for. It was very funny because it was a Bluebird engine inside in a Mercedes van – typically Irish (laughs).

So we’d to go away for another few days while they ordered in the part from England.

Then when it came in from England it took another few days to fit it and sort it out. Then, of course, it was winter time so the ferry wasn’t running every day. We had to wait another four days to get the ferry.

All in all, it was nearly two weeks that we spent in France. It was as long as a Lions trip. It was some craic.

Five of us went over; only three of us came back. The other two had to bail out. One lad got a flight from France; the other lad got a lift to London and got a flight home from there.

Do you go to many Munster matches these days?

I have to confess – a friend of mine has a box in Thomond Park so I go to all the matches there. Feck it, I get the world of abuse going to matches. I’ve given up going to hurling matches. Just who I am, people would be slaggin’ you on the way in or you’d be signing autographs or talkin’ to people.

I know it sounds naff, but you wouldn’t have any pleasure. I used to love going to hurling matches but I’ve given it up. If Tipperary were involved at all, I’d be tormented beyond belief.

What’s the most unusual thing you’ve seen in a rugby ground?

Your one with the pram and the dogs down in Limerick, years and years back; she used to go along to all the Young Munster’s matches. She used to be along the sideline with a load of dogs in a pram, done up in the club colours.

In conversation with Richard Fitzpatrick