Search Results for 'Pat Spillane'

Kilkenny hurler Michael Fennelly was one of eight Irish sport stars to win a Texaco Sportstars of the Year Award this year.

Alan Kerins Projects is pleased to announce that a novel charity match will take place in Croke Park on Thursday October 27 at 3.30pm. The match will see the old rivalry ignited between Dublin and Galway in what promises to be a fun filled occasion. Some of Ireland’s greatest sporting heroes have signed up for the event and they include; Padraic Joyce, Bernard Dunne, Ray Houghton, Jason Sherlock, Katie Taylor, Darragh O Se, Pat Spillane, Mikey Sheehy, Seamus Moynihan, Hector, Gary Gillespie, Ken Doherty, Mick Galway and Tony Ward.

I was hugely disappointed this week after our Crossmolina boys lost to Castlebar Mitchels in the quarter finals last Sunday. We had prepared exceptionally well, particularly over the last three weeks since the conclusion of the group stages with two good challenge matches and quality training in between. The feeling was that if we could beat Castlebar, we had a right chance of winning the county title. The mood was good coming into the game despite injury to five of our first team squad. There was a quiet air of confidence that we would beat the more fancied Mitchels. There was a big doubt about our county player Peadar Gardiner’s participation right up to the last few minutes, but he had pushed himself right to the limit to be fit to play.

At the tail end of last September, James Horan took on the challenge of rebuilding and renewing the Mayo team. In the first flush of his tenure, only a couple of minutes after being approved by the county board delegates in fact, he faced the press and gave a very simple promise that his side kept up last Sunday to the very end. “I know a lot of Mayo supporters are down in the dumps with how things finished last year, but what we will insist on is that any time a Mayo player goes out he will give it absolutely everything he has.”

The All Ireland Football Championship is entering its final stages and as both Mayo and Roscommon prepare to line-out in Croke Park on Sunday, supporters in the west of Ireland are gearing up for a great day of football. But there is another competition that is heating up, the SuperValu Search for Ireland’s Number 1 Real GAA Supporter, and Ballaghaderreen native Cliona Mulvaney has been named one of the four finalists in this year’s competition.

Brian “Skeach” Kelly will more than likely line out for his beloved Palatine as they try to dethrone reigning champions, Éire Óg, in next Sunday’s county senior football final. Nothing unusual in that you might think. Sure hasn’t he been playing senior football for Pal for the best part of a decade and a half. Well three months ago, Skeagh was in no position to take to any football field. In actual fact his very life was under threat! Following a clash of heads in the Palatine’s clash with Kildavin/Clonegal he was left with quite a bruise on the side of his head. He went to hospital immediately after the game as a precaution but was discharged that evening and told to take it easy for a few days. That he did and was ready and willing to return to the training field. However he was still complaining of headaches and blurred vision. He thought nothing of it but the Pal management team were not happy to let him return. That first night back he was practising a few frees before training when Mick Lillis Pal’s trainer told him he was unhappy to let him resume. The club arranged an MRI scan in Dublin to make sure everything was alright and it was from there that things began to get interesting! He returned home but almost immediately was summoned back to Beaumont hospital where he was informed that he had a life-threatening clot on his brain. As he said himself, he still didn’t realise how serious the situation was. He felt fine. It was only when he asked a member of the medical team attending him to rate the severity of his condition on a scale of one to ten that it really became clear to him. She told him it was at least nine and a half! At that moment all thoughts of playing in this year’s county final disappeared from his mind! The doctors told him that if he had taken part in that training session and received even minimal physical contact, it could have been enough to have killed him. If the clot had moved as much as one milimetre it would have been fatal. He was immediately put on clot busting drugs in the hope of avoiding surgery and thankfully these were successful. Still he was not to go near a football field for at least the rest of the year, if not for ever. But once he was on the road to recovery like any GAA player, the lure of the game was too much. He was back for the latter part of the championship and apart from the unusual sight of him sporting a rugby scrum cap, everything is back to normal and he will be looking for his second county medal on Sunday. That possibility was far from his thoughts three months ago when, as he put it, “they were thinking of opening my skull!” Brian’s story may be an aside but it is just one of those things that add to the occasion of any county final. Every club has its own stories. Reasons why they just cannot afford to let this opportunity slip. I’m sure Éire Óg have their own. As I said here last week, it’s one of the things that makes a county final unique. 

It was a fabulous night for the Kilkenny hurlers on Friday last as they dominated the All Stars, picking up nine awards for the team selection and the tenth award - ‘Player of the Year’ going to the deserving Eoin Larkin. Speaking to Eoin after the banquet he told me he was absolutely thrilled with the award, and was delighted that all his hard work and dedication had helped.

Most inter-county football managers have been appointed and are bedding in with their respective counties at this stage. For those stepping into management for the first time it is an exciting time. There will be lots of enthusiasm to get the show on the road. Because of the lengthened closed season this year, however, they are forced to wait a little while longer before they get the opportunity to see the talent or, in some cases, lack of talent at their disposal. For the likes of Kevin Walsh, Luke Dempsey, Mickey Moran, John Morrison and Glen Ryan, to name but a few, there will be all sorts of advice flowing from various quarters regarding players who maybe didn’t play the previous year. Most of these players didn’t feature under the previous management for a combination of reasons no doubt, but there are many who will argue that some of these lads never got a fair chance under the previous regime. Others may have missed out because they were studying abroad and just couldn’t give the required commitment. Some may have been injured and did not make it back onto the championship panel.

Kerry won the league in 2004 under Jack O’Connor. And then in September they collected the Sam Maguire at their ease. They did the exact same thing two years later and no doubt that is what is on their agenda for 2009 too.

Kilkenny hurling legend Henry Shefflin will this year bid to join an elite band of just two players at the top of the leader-board for GAA All Stars, after being nominated yesterday for his ninth award.