That time Brian O’Driscoll got sick on Paris’ most famous street while celebrating iconic win

A cracking story.

Coming off of a bleak run in the '90s, without a victory away to France since 1972, they were not given much of a chance in Paris.

However, had they known just how good a young Brian O'Driscoll was, the odds would have been significantly shorter.

Despite it coming so early in his international career, his hat-trick performance at the Stade de France is still his most celebrated in green.

But while the images of the 21-year-old in his baggy jersey, tearing past French defenders, are etched in the collective memories of Irish fans, his shenanigans after the match on the streets of La Ville Lumière are lesser known.

Thankfully, Tom English has kept the story alive in his wonderful book 'No Borders'; an essential piece in any Irish fans' reading collection.

Describing the night out after the game, O'Driscoll said: "Naive me didn't realise that we hadn't won in Paris for thirty-odd years, and I scored a few tries and we won the game and I thought, 'Ah, this is great, it's very exciting,' but I didn't realise the enormity of it until we got back home. We went out that night to Kitty O'Shea's, and then eventually Mick Galway and his wife said, 'Right, we're going home.'"

His centre parter on the day was Rob Henderson, who can be thanked for his assist to BOD for his second try, but also his assist on the ses, when he picked up a man who seemed completely faded, despite there being plenty of time left on the clock.

Henderson recounted: "We had a good night out. I came back to the hotel around 1.30am and I saw Brian lying on a couch in the lobby, dribbling. And I thought to myself, 'Hang on, we've just won in Paris for the first time in 28 years and this fella got a hat-trick. It's way too early to go to bed.' So I picked him up and dragged him down the Champs-Élysées to some shitty karaoke-type bar and we were necking bottles of cheap wine. It was like a scene from Snatch."

Disrespecting iconic Parisienne locations was O'Driscoll's forte that day, and he kept it going on Europe's most famous street.

He finished: "We went to a club on the Champs-Élysées and went up to the front door - and weren't allowed in. They were having none of it. They didn't care how many tries I'd scored. So we went across the road to an eatery and we had to order some food so that we could get some more wine. We ended up having an omelette and basically a bottle of vinegar - God, the wine was so bad - and when i walked outside and the fresh air hit me, I ended up seeing both the omelette and the wine again, all over the Champs-Élysées. It was classy. Hendo just stood there laughing. 'Jesus,' he said, this is some comedown."