Today sees the top two teams in the world face off in Dublin in one of the most highly anticipated games of the year. Looking back at previous clashes, there was this amusing incident at Lansdowne Road in 1989, where a young ball boy became a national hero.
When New Zealand legend Grant Fox rounded the Irish defence and crossed to score, he thought he had picked up his first ever try against Ireland.
As you can see in this classic old footage, the touch judge on the far side had already had his flag up for a while, but couldn't get the attention of the referee. Eventually, it took the intervention of a young ball boy to go on and point him in the right direction, which eventually led to the try being ruled out.
That ballboy, Garrett Tubridy, was interviewed and later wrote famous New Zealand commentator Keith Quinn a lovely letter after he had already asked for the footage of the interview. Quin shared the thank you letter on twitter recently, as you can see below.
The great nature of the interaction continued with a reply from Tubridy, who would now be around 42-years-old and is involved in rugby at the administration level.
Quinn then followed up with another amusing reply.
New Zealand went on to win the 1989 Test 23-6, and stayed undefeated against Ireland until the famous 40-29 loss in 2016 in Chicago.
0 Comments