Keith Earls reveals the hilarious story behind the World Cup bike picture

Jared Wright 18 Nov 2023 1:00 PM

Ireland and Munster players Keith Earls and Peter O'Mahony and Earls on RTE's Late Late Show.

Now retired Ireland winger Keith Earls has detailed the back story of the Rugby World Cup bike picture with Peter O’Mahony.

The image of the pair went viral on social media during the tournament and has since been turned into a meme.

Story behind the meme

However, the story behind the picture is even better, as Earls recounted on RTE’s ‘The Late Late Show’.

“Yeah, basically where we were staying in Tours, we had access to bikes and myself, Peter O’Mahony and Dave Kilcoyne every Wednesday after training, and Thursday we would go down and try and solve the world’s problems,” the ex-Ireland and Munster winger joked.

“It was basically me and Pete being a therapist for Dave Kilcoyne really, but so yeah, we cycled everywhere around town, but we couldn’t understand why Finlay Bealham kept getting Ubers around the place.

“So we were downtown one day, and he was off getting his cornrows done for the game, and we bumped into him walking, and we were like, where’s your bike?

“He was like ‘I’ve never told anyone this, but I can’t cycle’ and we were like ‘What are you on about?’ He was like no, I’m just a really
nervous cycler, and I was like get on the bike. I’m going to jump on the back. We’re going to a restaurant to get something to eat.

“I was on the bike, and I swear I had to jump off for my own safety, it was like getting a carry off my 5-year-old daughter; he was screeching at parked cars, and he was wobbling all over the place.

He added: “So I jumped on with Peter O’Mahony, it’s much safer, and I was doing the satnav, and so we went down the road to the restaurant.

“That’s how we knew there was Irish in town, that went viral, but it was hilarious like you could hear Finlay in the background roaring and shouting help, please! It was a good story.”