PICS: Paddy Power land brilliant Paul O’Connell statue in centre of Cardiff

By Shaun Cronin

The pranksters at bookmaker Paddy Power have struck again in Cardiff this morning ahead of Ireland’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final with Argentina.

With Irish fans lining the streets of the Welsh capital again today, they will find a nice surprise waiting for them outside Paddy Power’s outlet on St Marys Street.

There they will find a giant statue of Ireland’s fallen rugby captain Paul O’Connell.

Placed in Cardiff today. Bravo @paddypower pic.twitter.com/pyml2vnHyK

— Derek Lande (@dereklande) October 18, 2015

O’Connell injured his hamstring against France last week and was ruled out of the rest of the tournament on Tuesday and subsequently

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The injury ended O’Connell’s iconic Ireland career and Paddy Power decided the best way to honour him was to put a huge statue of him overnight in Cardiff.

Well done @paddypower
great atmosphere here in Cardiff #ThanksPaulie #IREvARG #RWC2015 pic.twitter.com/1VUB54RafN

— JenHen99 (@JenHen99) October 18, 2015

The statue is engraved with the words: “Paul O’Connell - Putting the fear of God into opponents since 2002”.

We're not always on board with Paddy Power’s stunts, but this one we like!

Paddy Power said "The loss of Paul O’Connell is so devastating that you’d swear George R.R. Martin wrote the script.

"As much as we’d love to, we can’t give him new hamstrings but we can make him a bloody massive statue that will hopefully help to further rally the already bonkers Irish support."

The statue is made of polystyrene then filled and sanded before application of an F/R polyurethane hard-coat.

The height of the figure is about 2.5 metres and the base is nearly 1 metre high. It was made in five days with one main sculptor and an assistant.