Hurling

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Ice, ice baby

January 9, 2010 in Athletics, Features, Football, GAA, Golf, Hurling, Rugby, Sport, Swimming | Comments

unlucky

The news broadcasts are creaking under the weight of cliches like ‘blankets of snow’, ‘big freezes’ while footpaths are engaging in treachery.

As the country has slowed ground to a halt, the sporting world has been the same.

Meanwhile, in today’s Irish Examiner, despite the present icy inertia, about two dozen of our staff writers and columnists have looked ahead to the events that will define the Irish sporting year. I can’t link to the website as it’s a graphic but check it out in the hard copy if you’re in Ireland. There’s some surprising calls.

In the meantime, here’s my effort: Read the rest of this entry »

The wild west

November 12, 2009 in Hurling, Sport | Comments

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Portumna and Loughrea will meet on Sunday in the county senior hurling championship final. Much delayed by the controversy surrounding the alleged assault of a referee after one of the semi-finals, there may yet be another few dirty strokes pulled in anger.

These two wildly successful clubs are the Stadler and Waldorf of Galway sport – but the last time they met in county final the neighbourly rivalry boiled over into a graphically violent affair with Portumna’s young star – the game’s brightest talent – sufferring appalling injuries.

Last summer, After I asked Canning about his WWE “you-can’t-see-me” celebration, we spoke about that ordeal. Shrugging his shoulders, he admitted a reunion was on the cards but insisted any revenge would be earned with the sliotar.

And then he fired a few penalties at my head.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

October 19, 2009 in GAA, Hurling | Comments


Fair play to Cork goalkeeper Donal Óg Cusack who yesterday confirmed in a newspaper interview that he’s gay.

This is no real shock, it has to be said, to anyone with an interest in hurling but for a guy who is still playing – and a goalkeeper – in the ultra-conservative world of GAA this takes some balls.

Making the cut with Canning

September 1, 2009 in Columns, Hurling, Sport | Comments

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AT THIS time of year, American football teams are tasting the white heat of intense pre-season training. Gridiron giants take part in a violent annual ballet as a hulking, heaving mass of athletic hardware crashes into each other in a frantic bid to forge a team ready for the NFL season.

Amongst this chaotic scene however, one, particular, man is an island. While the team of coaches on the sideline watch these full-blooded practice sessions unfold on days when the season’s playbook is inked, there, invariably, wearing a brightly coloured cap, is the author of so much of it: the quarter back.

This orange hat, which crowns the QB, offers his enthusiastic and often much bigger team mates a very clear message: “Take it easy on this guy; he’s the franchise”. Neither Galway, nor county champions Portumna, make Joe Canning wear a luminous cap – but everyone knows this guy is worth a few Superbowl rings to the Tribesmen.

It’s fair to say, the 21-year-old is the key to at last unlocking All-Ireland success. But not his year. The westerners, as we know, were dumped out of the championship, after an encouraging run, which began in the Leinster SHC, by Waterford who picked the victory from Canning and co’s pocket in an All-Ireland quarter-final in Semple Stadium. Another year wasted.

But, despite his box-office name and his face now plastered on Dublin buses, the Portumna man is not one to swaddle himself in a burgeoning reputation it seems. As he beats a familiar path – from his club’s dressing room to the centre of the well-worn pitch – he is half feeling his left shoulder while he inspects the balding surface underfoot.

The day before Canning is to teach me some broad-brush strokes in the art of the sideline cut – an art in which he is a master – his club side take on Tipperary ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland decider with Kilkenny.

Essentially, it’s a chance for both sides (Portumna are at the business end of the county championship) to click through the gears in preparation for the real battles ahead. Not so for the LIT student who roars full throttle into a shoulder challenge with Premier county man-mountain Michael Webster. “I saw him coming and I thought ‘hang on now’. He’s a great player obviously. And a really big guy.” Canning comes off the worse in the crisp exchange. But he’s ready for a few sideline cuts nonetheless. Read the rest of this entry »

When Ringy met Bobby

June 10, 2009 in GAA, Hurling, New York, Sport | Comments

Robert Kennedy is 31 years dead this week.

Here the Senator – campaigning in New York – meets Cork hurling legend Christy Ring in the famous Gaelic Park.

There was many a home on Cork city’s northside, where I’m from, with a picture of Ring and a Kennedy – more likely Bobby’s brother, of course – above the mantlepiece. A portrait of the Pope may have made up a familiar triumvirate.

RFK, was shot dead on June 4, 1968, just hours after he won a huge step towards the White House with victory in the Democratic primary in California.

He addressed some supporters and media in the early morning of the next day at LA’s Ambassador Hotel.

Leaving the large ballroom, through the busy kitchen, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, opened fire and shot the candidate. Kennedy died soon after.

Ring lived just under a decade after this point; he passed in March 1979. Ring’s graveside oration in Cloyne was delivered by a former Rebel and Glen Rovers teammate and the then Taoiseach, Jack Lynch – who had met Bobby’s brother John in Cork City Hall in 1963, incidentally.

Many have guessed, through the years, what Mackey said to Ring in that famous GAA photograph depicting two old enemies captured in conversation on the sideline. I’d like to know what Bobby said to his new friend on the Gaelic Park turf.

G-Mac departs

March 11, 2009 in Hurling, Sport | Comments

Cork hurling manager Gerald McCarthy stepped down last night, going out with all guns blazing with a very hard hitting and close to the bone statement.

Cork fans’ march

March 6, 2009 in Hurling, Sport | Comments

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There’s a march in support of the Cork 08 hurlers; meeting at Kennedy Park @ 1.30pm this Sunday, for anyone in that camp.


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