WHEN THEY take on Ireland in next month’s rugby World Cup warm-up match in Bordeaux, the French won’t know what’s hit them.
At the best of times, tackles by Paul O’Connell or Jamie Heaslip would take the wind out of anyone’s sails. Come August, though, they’ll be even more formidable, with chests the shape of the Giant’s Causeway’s basalt columns.
The French, you’d imagine, will be rendered speechless by the blood-curdling sight, apart, perhaps, from uttering the odd strangled cry of “Mon Dieu!”.
Puma and the Irish Rugby Football Union broke the news yesterday in a press release, announcing the new home and “alternative” kits. The “alternative” version is to make its debut in the Bordeaux game.
It is the control panel on the chest of the shirt that, we were told, is shaped like the columns of the Giant’s Causeway which, if you recall, were formed by a volcanic eruption a few years back. Declan Kidney will trust that this feature doesn’t prompt his players to display similar indiscipline on the pitch.
Predictably, for those who know about these things, the shirt also features a crest that “uses a unique lenticular application that gives it a three-dimensional optic”. The rest of us, though, had to go googling.
None the wiser, really. Lenticular, need it be said, means “of or relating to the lens of the eye”, but it can also mean “shaped like a lentil”.
No offence at all to lovers of the pulse, but do we really want Brian O’Driscoll and Co sporting three-dimensional lentils on their chests? Red meat, surely, would be a more menacing sight?
That aside, the shirt also boasts “padded detail on the nape of the neck for more impact cushioning during contact” and is made using “an innovative ‘four-way stretch’ fabric that allows unrestrictive body movement”.
For those who purchase the shirt, that’ll be handy when they’re trying to squeeze themselves on to a No 45 after a game at the Aviva.
In a press release that would, frankly, have Donatella Versace purring, we also learned that the shirt offers a “dynamic look”, “incorporates an off centre placket detail” (phew) and features “a contemporary neck line”.
The only bad news, really, is that it’s “cut for an athletic fit”, which is hardly going to boost sales. If you think you could wear one though, without it having to be surgically removed, you can buy the “authentic jersey” for €90 (unless that was a misprint), the replica for €66 and the kid’s shirt for €45. Lentils and basalt columns included, hopefully.
