Joe Brolly always likes to have the last word…
Stephen Hunt attracted criticism from GAA circles when he wrote in a Sunday Independent column that GAA players wouldn’t know what hit them if they had to deal with the level of commitment required of professional footballers.
Hunt was writing in response to Brolly’s comments that professional footballers were not good role models.
But Joe Brolly has never been a man to leave things be and he has not held back in his comeback to Stephen Hunt in an interview with Irish News.
“I don’t imagine Stephen would have lasted five minutes in the Ulster club final last Sunday. I wouldn’t fancy his chances standing on the edge of the square with Patsy Bradley,” said Brolly.
Brolly has said that Hunt’s article only “exemplified” his point that soccer players are “self-interested” and also elaborated upon his original point that they are not role models.
“I was saying soccer players aren’t role models – they are just soccer players. Ghandi may be a role model or Pope Francis but soccer players are only that.
“It never ceases to amuse me when you see these young fellas – many of whom have have spent their lives playing soccer at the expense of education and come from very strong working class backgrounds – being described as role models because they’re famous.”
Brolly went on to say that if the Ipswich midfielder had watched last weekend’s Ulster Club Senior Football Final between Slaughtneil and Omagh he would have seen the discipline and commitment on show.
“If you look at that astounding application – lads putting their bodies on the line – and you think of someone like poor Stephen Hunt in the middle of that, it would be like Christians in the Colosseum… fed to the lions.”
He finished off the interview with the line: “That Stephen Hunt article… all it does is make you think ‘Thank f*ck I’m a GAA man’.”
We feel like we should put (Brolly, 2014) beside all his quotes, like we’re referencing him in a college essay or something…
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