Irish reporter's cringeworthy encounter with Russell Crowe

Watch this one between your fingers folks #cringe #awks #totesawks

An Irish reporter had a cringeworthy encounder with 'Noah' star Russell Crowe during the actor's red carpet appearance in Dublin on Saturday.

The reporter - Niamh Walsh from website evoke.ie pitched Crowe as soft question about having his rugby team come to Ireland for a match.

Whereupon Russell pointed out that his team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, actually play Rugby League.

"They're two different sports," he deadpans, as the poor scribe scrabbles for a recover.

It actually went downhill from there...

"While the actor appeared to mean well, he was pretty condescending to our Niamh!" wrote the team at Evoke.

"He cut off conversation with her almost immediately afterwards, when she questioned if he confused Ireland with the UK."

UPDATED 3.30:

The actor later challenged this with a tweet insisting he is well aware that Ireland is not part of the UK.

I know Ireland is a sovereign nation. You can imply I don't love Ireland but it won't stick, love the place, love the people.

— Russell Crowe (@russellcrowe) March 31, 2014

And then, just when you thought things couldn't get any worse for the reporter at the centre of it…

They did.

So - was Russell rude?

Or was he in the right to respond like that?