Former Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll has revealed the truth behind the controversial incident that occurred at Villa Park last Saturday.
The incident in question took place before Leicester’s PREM showdown with Gloucester, when head coach Geoff Parling confronted TNT presenter Craig Doyle on live television.
Doyle had told fellow presenter Liam McDevitt to kick a goal as an initiation for appearing on the show for the first time. This incensed Parling, who shoved Doyle, shouting: “It’s not f***ing on, get off the pitch, it’s not f***ing on”, leaving the duo to exit the field quickly.
Following plenty of discussion around the incident, and a formally written apology on behalf of Parling, O’Driscoll has revealed the play-by-play that led to the calamitous incident.
“Craig is off doing this big, long monologue at the opening of the show,” said the Irish legend speaking on the Off The Ball podcast.
“So he’s in the bells of Villa Park, and showing all of the trophies that have been won over the years, the dressing rooms and whatnot. So he’s coming out onto the pitch, not really knowing what’s going on.”
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Explaining that where the kicking tee was initially put down, the Leicester Tigers forwards wanted to do their lineouts, so they threw the tee away. But, believing that they might have the time, O’Driscoll told the former football player McDevitt to put the tee back down.
“Maybe have a quick go when Craig comes out,” the 47-year-old had said.
“The problem was that the rest of the team had started warming up close enough to the posts, so when Craig has his spiel with Liam, and then he kicks the goal – or missed it thankfully, because if he’d gotten it, it would have been closer to the players – Geoff comes over and Craig thinks he’s coming up for a chat, how wrong he was.
“Anyway, he was unimpressed by it, to say the least. Gives him a shove, and then Craig comes over and asks me my first question.
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“I felt for Craig, because, listen, he’s just following procedure and like his line, ‘would you sign him?’, expecting a bit of banter or something back. And instead, he gets told to f-off.”
Many presenters would have folded after such an awkward encounter, but his experience showed as he continued like the true professional he is.
“I have to say, what an unreal pro to be able to deal with that,” admired O’Driscoll.
“Because it didn’t happen to me, and I was like panicking inside, whereas if it had happened to you, and then you had to do a full show for the rest of the day, it would have been brutal.
“I’m not saying it didn’t play on his mind, but I tell you, you would never have known it was. There’s no one like him. There’s really no one like him.”
The 55-year-old presenter has been a prominent face in rugby since 2004, when he first joined the BBC Sport team, helping to present the Six Nations and the Athens Summer Olympics.
Since then, he’s gone from strength to strength, covering various television programs and becoming the face of TNT Sports (BT Sports) in 2013.
“There’s no better man to go off script than him and just pull in interviews and make it work, where behind the cameras, we’re all scrambling, but no one watching at home would be aware of it. I’ve been involved in a few situations like that, so I must say, I was so impressed,” said O’Driscoll.
The rest of the day went off without a hitch, with Parling’s Leicester side running away 17-36 winners against the West Country side.
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