Cork rugby fan's hilarious picture of Peter O'Mahony and Keith Earls cycling goes viral

The snap has already inspired a host of humorous memes and reactions online

The viral image of Ireland and Munster stalwarts Keith Earls and Peter O'Mahony. Picture: Jim Byrne

Munster and Ireland stars Peter O’Mahony and Keith Earls have gone viral for a hilarious picture of their unusual way of getting around the French city of Tours ahead of their squad's Rugby World Cup Clash against South Africa this weekend.

The picture shows Ireland captain Peter O'Mahony sporting Crocs and cycling a bicycle down a street in Tours while giving his relaxed-looking teammate a "backer".

The snap, which was captured by Jim Byrne and originally posted on Facebook by John O'Driscoll, both rugby fans from Cork, has already inspired a host of humorous memes and reactions online.

One such meme shows the pair photoshopped onto the back of a Springbok, the nickname of the current World Cup Champions and their Pool B rivals.

O'Mahony & Earls know how to tame the Boks 🇮🇪🏉 pic.twitter.com/fIfqIkjQto

— Philip Andrew O'Reilly Photography (@PhilAndrewPhoto) September 21, 2023

Several others drew comparisons to the characters of Conor and Jock from the Young Offenders TV series, who have been known to share a bicycle from time to time.

Tweeting the original image on their social media accounts, Munster Rugby dubbed the picture as "the best photo from the 2023 @RugbyWorldCup."

📸 The best photo from the 2023 @RugbyWorldCup 😆

Top marks to the alert photographer who took this brilliant pic of Peter O’Mahony & Keith Earls in France 🙌 🚲 pic.twitter.com/SGBTSWl4X7

— Munster Rugby (@Munsterrugby) September 21, 2023

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Mr O'Driscoll explained that he and his five fellow fans had bumped into some of the Irish team on Wednesday evening outside a Tours cafe and taken a handful of photographs with them.

After they parted ways, Mr Byrne seized to opportunity to get a picture of O'Mahony and Earls as they rode by. Mr O'Driscoll then shared it and some other images on his Facebook profile, and things kicked off from there.

"An hour later, we got a call going: 'your picture is going viral, it has 100,000 views!'"

"I didn't think it'd go viral — I put about one picture a year up on Facebook and that would be the extent of it."

Asked whether he'd seen any of the many memes the picture has inspired, Mr O'Driscoll said: "We did yeah: the springbok and the whole lot, they've been sent to us all day. They're very good."

Mr O'Driscoll, Mr Byrne, and the four others in their group are attending Ireland's game against South Africa at the Stade de France at 8pm on Saturday night.

Asked for a prediction, he said if Ireland get over the line against the champions, "it'll be a great indicator of where we stand."

"Hopefully they get over the line, and after that, who knows. But they're a great team South Africa, so fingers crossed."