It was the moment Nigel Owens realised he should have listened to the teacher with elbow patches on his jumper, after all, who spoke of the mysteries of meanders, oxbow lakes and the various kinds of physical landscapes.
Without geography you’re nowhere, someone once said.
On Saturday evening, Owens knew he was somewhere; he just wasn’t quite sure where as he tried to make his way to Cork after taking charge of the Munster v Edinburgh match in Limerick.
The west Walian had taken a wrong turn and ended up not far from the popular tourist town of Tralee - some 113km from his actual final destination. The move added more than a hour to the the official’s journey — not ideal after overseeing a game that had a late 7.35pm kick-off, anyway.
Owens reported the fun and games to his 396,000 Twitter followers, saying: “Should have (taken) geography in school.
“ Must have missed the turning for Cork on way back from the match in Limerick. I was not far from Tralee before I noticed. Nightmare and extra hour plus drive back, then.”
Many have been there before, of course — losing all sense of direction on a dark night on an unfamiliar road in southern Ireland.
Such tales usually have happy endings.
It seems that was the case with the popular Owens, and social-media lapped up his yarn of a referee temporarily in distress, with his tweet gaining more than 6,000 likes.
