Mack Hansen bawled after Lions announcement and explains the Faz factor
Mack Hansen admits he cried when he was announced as a British and Irish Lions player - after he tried to contact Andy Farrell in the build-up to put him out of his misery.
The Connacht and Ireland star says he is a fan of the big reveal of the Lions squad but, as he waited to hear if he had made the cut for the trip to Australia, the suspense was too much to bear.
Having grown impatient during the prolonged live TV coverage of the announcement from The O2 in London, Hansen went for a swim to cool off.
"Then when I came back, they finally started reading the names," he told Tommy Bowe and Donncha O'Callaghan on their Offload podcast.
"And then once my name was read out, I just started bawling crying straight away. It's one of the best feelings I've ever had in my entire life.
"Tears were flowing, mate. Absolutely flowing. And I called my mum back straight away, and they were very much the same. Like, it was, yeah, incredible.
"Genuinely, nobody has an idea. So many people since the announcement were like, 'surely they were given a heads-up'. "But we just don't know, and it could go either way. I mean, it just does make it that little bit more special.
"I think it's really cool, and it's obviously very exciting. But at the same time, I just wanted to know. I would have loved a little message just saying, 'yeah', like a thumbs up going, you're in. And then you can actually enjoy it."
Hansen explained that he messaged Aled Walters, who is Ireland's S&C coach and also on Farrell's Lions staff, the day before the announcement.
"I messaged Aled to say 'put me out of my misery' but he didn't even open it. He sent me a thumbs up (after)," smiled the Canberra-born winger."
Hansen even rang Farrell a couple of weeks previous to that. I had a few beers in a pub with Bundee (Aki) and was trying to call him," said the 26-year-old.
"I thought it would be a great idea to ring Faz and a couple of the staff and have a chat to them. Faz didn't pick up, and in typical fashion, he didn't reply. I messaged him in the morning to say sorry for calling but he didn't message me back.
"When I got his face tattooed on me, he opened the pic I sent and then didn't reply for like three hours. And then he comes back going, 'oh, mate, I love it, it's great'. And I was like, why didn't you just reply to me straight away then?".
Hansen said he is often asked what makes Farrell such an effective head coach. "The best way to describe it is just that he just gets it. He just gets everything," he said.
"Whether it's that you need a pat on the back or a bit of a lift, he can deliver that to you. But on the other hand if he thinks you're slacking off or something, like, he'll have no problem ripping you to shreds as well.
"On the other hand, he knows the right time to have a piss up. He knows the right time to tell boys to take it easy. Like, he just seems to get it all right. He's on top of everything, essentially, and pretty impeccable."Unless you play under him, it's hard to explain, but he just gets it. He's someone you want to play for, plain and simple. I think you actually take for granted how much you really do get out of a good head coach, how much energy they can bring to you.
"Some of the speeches he gives pre-game, they're like out of movies. So it's class having him at the helm. It's going to be so exciting now.
"You just feed off the energy you get from him. I think that's been the main thing I've come to notice from it, especially when he wasn't here in this Six Nations.
"You get some amount of energy off Faz's speeches or just him being around the place."
Hansen is working his way back to full fitness after an ankle injury and has returned to running. "I'll be back," he stressed. "Yeah, unfortunately we're not playing any finals footy, which is perfect.
"So I'll just be running and gymming pretty much for the next couple of weeks. There's a couple of guys that I think will be up for spots in the Irish tour as well, so I think there'll actually be a good few of us around training. I won't just be running on my own, kind of thing.
"We'll get a bit of skills in and stuff like that, trying to stay sharp as we can."
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