Paul O'Connell has shed light on a cinema date with Donncha O'Callaghan during the 2005 Lions Tour in New Zealand.

Speaking on Off The Ball earlier this year, O'Callaghan explained how the pair went to see Batman Begins and one moment in particular stood out.

"I just want to clear this up, I never went back to Batman being the greatest day of his tour (in 2005)," said O'Callaghan.

"I remember at one point of it, I remember it was Batman Returns or Batman Begins, but Batman just started flying, and Paul O'Connell stood up, threw down his popcorn and went 'He hasn't even practiced!'

"And I was there like 'He's a fictional character, Paul...'"

Last night on the Off The Ball Roadshow, O'Connell has his say on the day.

"Like all of Donncha's stories he doesn't let the truth get in the way of what happened," he said.

"We were at the movie, it was a great day off, the two of us had it together, spent the day chatting because it was a tough tour, very little good I could say about it.

Chatting away, had a coffee, went to the cinema then. He probably brought chicken breasts and boiled eggs, I got popcorn and malteasers or whatever, but I remember in the movie I think we were the only two people in there.

"So we were actually talking quite loud in there, but it went through Batman and all the stuff he had invented to go from Bruce Wayne to Batman, but they never explained how he managed to learn how to fly.

"He built the amazing car, and explained this is how it does all the things it's doing, and then all of a sudden he was flying.

"That was the only point I was making."

O'Connell also spoke about how he was given the nickname Roy Keane by team-mate Alan Quinlan, although it didn't really catch on.

"Roy Keane was there at the time and we all loved Roy Keane. We were almost modelling ourselves on him," he added.

"That was the nickname Quinny gave to me and Quinny used. No one else really used it - maybe ROG a little bit. In fairness, Dunners actually used to use it as well and that's because Donncha doesn't fall out with anyone, right, so if there ever an issue, Dunners would come over to me and say, 'Your man is doing A, B and C here, it's not on' and I'd go over and I'd have the big argument."

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Online Editors