Rugby Player’s Interview Devolves Into Extended Metaphor About ‘Slightly Irish Horse’

Harlequins FC/YouTube

Well, I just found my favorite rugby player. 

His name is Joe Marler, a prop for the English national team and the club team Harlequins. Marler was part of the England squad that finished second at the Rugby World Cup earlier this month in Japan, where he delighted fans with his entertaining press conferences and with antics like his comically oversized neck pillow.

Now he’s back at home, and still delivering gold in his sessions with the media. 

Marler was in attendance for Harlequins’ European Rugby Champions Cup loss to Clermont Auvergne on Saturday but not on the field. The team has a chance to bounce back, though, this weekend in a Champions Cup match against Bath and Marler promises the team will get back on the horse—maybe literally. 

“We’ve got another week to get back on the horse, and take that horse to the water,” Marler said. “And you can ask that horse, you can say, ‘Hey, horsey, do you want to have a drink or do you want a swim?’ And it’s up to that horse to then realize what he wants to do in his life. And that horse, at the moment, wants to go out on Saturday and he wants to clippity-clop all the way to [Harlequins’ home ground] The Stoop and he wants to say hello to those fans. And he goes, ‘I’m sorry about the result last week but I’m going to give a better performance here at home against Bath’—he’s a slightly Irish horse. So we’re looking forward to, like I say, getting back on that horse.”

Is there any NFL team out there willing to give this guy a job? Because American sports would be in a better place with Joe Marler around.