Nathan Hines could be forgiven for being a bag of nerves before going up against his old colleagues in the Heineken Cup semi-final tomorrow, but he doesn’t appear to be taking it too seriously.
Contact with the outside world, never mind the opposition players, is normally not something that’s practised in the immediate hours before such a crucial game, but Clermont Auvergne forward Hines had no problem taking the mick out of former Leinster colleague Sean O’Brien on Twitter earlier today.
Like a lot of his provincial and international teammates, O’Brien is inundated with retweet requests on the social networking site and, man of the people that he is, the Tullow Tank is more obliging than most in this regard.
Obviously well aware of O’Brien’s generosity, Hines sent O’Brien a cheeky tweet earlier this afternoon, asking him to retweet his post because he was playing in the Heineken Cup semi-final tomorrow.
At the time of writing, O’Brien has refused to grant Hines’ request, so whether he just hasn’t got around to it or the snub is a psychological ploy to try and win the mind games with the giant Aussie turned Scot remains to be seen.
We certainly found it funny and it is nice to see that despite the fact that he’s bound to be a bit nervy about the whole occasion, Hines can still have a laugh with old friends from a province that he never wanted to leave in the first place.
Besides, you can guarantee that all friendships will be left firmly on the sidelines when the two sides, probably the best in the competition, go head to head in Bordeaux tomorrow afternoon.
Maybe Sean will wait until after the game to inflict some Twitter payback.
