Couple showing their true colours

OPPOSITE SIDES: Byron and Carol wearing their rugby shirts

Clodagh Sheehy

The Brennan-Banbury household will be split down the middle tomorrow as husband and wife Carol and Byron shout for opposite sides.

Carol, from Ballinteer in Dublin, met Byron – a Kiwi – when he came here to work on a project for Airtricity in 2005.

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When he returned Down Under she went with him and now they are back in Ireland where they wed last year. Byron, from Auckland, had a great-grandad, Ivan Cathcart, who almost got to play on the All Blacks tour to South Africa in 1928 – but his wife Doris told him he couldn't leave their farm and he had to stay and milk the cows.

Carol is a passionate Ireland rugby fan but also a big GAA supporter. Her dad Ciaran played for Laois and later managed the Laois team.

Tomorrow Carol plans to get up first so she can dress their son Jack (2) in his Irish jersey rather than his All Blacks one.

It is Carol's birthday so she hoping for an Irish victory. "I don't want to be in tears on my birthday", she said.

csheehy@hnews.ie