Paper jibe forces IRFU to build bridges

THE IRFU have moved to ease tensions over a negative Irish newspaper report about New Plymouth which hosted Ireland’s clash with the All Blacks on June 12th.

Comments in a Dublin-based paper that the host venue was worse than ‘a one-horse town given that the horse has long since bolted’ sparked a massive backlash from residents and the town’s mayor Peter Tennent.

With the Irish squad set to return to the Taranaki region for next year’s World Cup, IRFU president John Callaghan has distanced the union from the comments and heaped praised on New Plymouth and its residents.