In Friday’s Hospital Pass, we consider Tadhg Kennelly’s future and the shock and awfulness that has descended on Limerick this week.
It turns out that, far from retiring from Aussie Rules to pursue a lucrative media career, Tadhg Kennelly could be tempted to play on for at least another season.
With the end of his time at Sydney Swans now nigh, Tadhg has been looking around for alternative sources of income to ensure he can continue to afford shrimps, barbies and stubbies anytime he feels like it.
Reports coming out of Sydney today suggest the Kerryman is considering putting pen to paper at another Aussie Rules club. And he might need a lot of paper, judging from the slightly less than succinct banner the latest outfit in AFL will be playing under – the Greater Western Sydney Giants.
Greater Western Sydney Giants is a new contender for most ridiculous sports team name we’ve ever heard of, although it needs to go a bit to eclipse the two pacesetters in that arena, the Webster University Gorloks and Thailand Tobacco Monopoly.
Any deal, incidentally, would not require a change of home for Tadhg, who’s been a superstar for Sydney Swans for several years. But it will mean that, contrary to scientific fact, he will stop being a Swan and instead become an Ugly Duckling.
Misinformation
You can say what you like about Cork men, and one thing you’d say about Cork men that nobody would dispute is that Cork men have principles.
You might hate their guts for it, a Mick McCarthy-v-Roy Keane kind of hatred, but you can never accuse them of not standing their guns and sticking to their ground.
So when one of Cork’s best known men, Donal O’Grady, says that he had an agreement to take charge of the Limerick hurlers for a year, and he took charge of them for a year, and he left them after that year, we believe him.
Not everybody did, with one journalist doing a bit of digging to discover that O’Grady actually had an option to stay on for another couple of years.
Donal, though, was having none of it.
Quoted in the Irish Examiner, he said, “I was the most surprised man in Ireland to hear about [a two-year extension]. Nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t know where the journalist in question came up with that information but it certainly didn’t tally with mine.
“The report earlier this week means people think I was offered a deal, and therefore I was party to it, when nothing could be further from the truth. I had no absolutely no discussions with anybody about the 2012 season. I let it be known at the start of the year that I’d only be working in Limerick for one year and I didn’t deviate from that.”
For what it’s worth, we believe you Donal.
