Leinster and Ireland rugby legend Brian O'Driscoll took to Twitter to poke fun at Tana Umaga after the former All-Black who spear tackled him back in 2005 earned a silver medal in Jiu-Jitsu.
Back in 2005, the British and Irish Lions toured New Zealand and 41 seconds into the first Test at the Jade Stadium in Christchurch, O'Driscoll was spear tackled by both Umaga and Keven Mealamu in gruesome fashion.
The tackle went unpunished and resulted in a dislocated shoulder for O'Driscoll, who was forced to leave the field of play and take no further part in the tour.
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The tackle precipitated a media storm as O'Driscoll and the Lions' camp looked for punishments to follow the crimes of Umaga and Mealamu.
Meanwhile, on the New Zealand side, Umaga and Mealamu remained stoic in their refusal to hold their hands up to what they had done or apologise to O'Driscoll directly.
The bitterness lingered for years and there never truly came a public resolution to the saga which became known as 'Speargate'.
However, relations appear to have improved somewhat between O'Driscoll and Umaga judging by BOD's tongue-in-cheek comment directed at the latter following his recent Jiu-Jitsu success.
Umaga finished second at the World Master Jiu-Jitsu Championships in Las Vegas earlier this month, going down to the USA's Scott Giller in the final of the men's master 4 brown super heavyweight division after winning his quarter-final and semi-final earlier in the day.
And as that news filtered through to Twitter, O'Driscoll couldn't resist having a polite dig.
He said: "Proud to have played some small part in his preparation for this silver medal!
"JOOOOOKE!!! Well done @tanaumaga that's a great achievement."
Umaga has not responded to the tweet, but given O'Driscoll's good nature in congratulating him on his achievement, it is possible that fences have been mended.
In his 2007 autobiography Close Up, Umaga described the phonecall he and O'Driscoll eventually had after the incident - and he made his lack of regret clear on that occasion.
He wrote: “He was still angry that I hadn’t gone over to see how he was and once he’d got that off his chest, he accused me of being involved in a lot of off-the-ball incidents.
"When he started talking about off-the-ball stuff and me not being a gentleman I thought ‘oh, you’re reaching now’.
“I never went out to commit foul play: I didn’t punch guys on the ground or stomp on them.
"So I said, ‘Oh well, mate, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
"I’m sorry for what happened to you but there was no intent in it; it was one of those unfortunate things that happen in rugby.
"He said, ‘Yeah, but you could’ve helped it’. ‘Okay, mate,’ I said, ‘all the best’ And that was where we left it.”
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