A former Ireland teammate reveals details of an infamous Paul O’Connell forfeit

Strange things happen during a World Cup.

It's not a surprise that players look for creative ways to pass the time during a monster six-week tournament, and thanks to Donncha O'Callaghan, we've got some more details on an infamous incident during the 2011 event. It's been widely known that Paul O'Connell conducted a team-meeting in the build up to facing Australia with something rather interesting painted on his face. The Munster man was on the losing end of a bet, and as result he was forced to draw a cat's nose and whiskers on his face when talking to his fellow forwards and leave it on for an entire 24 hours. Speaking in today's Sunday Times O'Callaghan has revealed more details of the incident and the reaction of his fellow players

"Paulie spoke for 20 minutes, and for as long as he spoke I never noticed the cat’s whiskers and nose on his face." "He was sitting there looking like something from a pantomime with a tough audience in the palm of his hand, setting the tone for one of the biggest matches of our careers. Only O’Connell could have pulled it off."

O'Connell's speech clearly worked as Ireland went out a few hours later and beat Australia in one of our most famous ever World Cup results. Wonder if Joe Schmidt will chance something similar in the coming weeks?