FRESH FROM TOURING the film festival circuit, Le Chéile is a new five-minute short directed and edited by Kev L Smith which follows Lahinch local surfer Ollie O’Flaherty and a host of his friends who are intertwined within the surfing community.

Big wave surfer O’Flaherty previously featured in Between Land And Sea, the Ross Whitaker documentary for which Smith was the director of surf photography. (Whitaker’s film aired on RTÉ last month and will remain available to watch on the RTÉ Player for the next eight days).

Smith also worked with Whitaker as a cameraman on Katie (Netflix), which documented Irish boxing icon Katie Taylor’s pursuit of redemption following her devastating premature exit from the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Le Chéile is described by its creator as “a short film about how individuals living in a town help to shape that area, as well as the people and society around them.”

The song which plays throughout is ‘Liscannor Bay’, performed by the O’Connell brothers — friends of protagonist O’Flaherty — and recorded in Kenny’s, their local haunt.

With the warm-up games out of the way, Murray, Bernard and Gavan discuss the renewed cause for optimism, impressive individual player form, and a potential quarter-final versus either South Africa or New Zealand.

The42 Rugby Weekly / SoundCloud