The Sneaky Pint: Bric-a-Brac

Posted on October 3, 2019 / by The Drunken Poet

You’ve no doubt found yourself at the bar of The Drunken Poet, gazing up and pondering life and its many twists and turns. Perhaps your eyes have rested on the two sliotars sitting above the back bar. To the casual observer, there may not be much point to them being there, except maybe as decoration. If this has been your conclusion,  then shame on you my fellow barfly. If you’re a regular of this noble establishment, then you should know by now that the Poet doesn’t dabble in nick nacks and meaningless bric-a-brac. These are the sliotars that were used in the two halves of the most savage battle to have ever played out on a hurley pitch.

It was the year 1880. The GAA had not yet been formed, there were no formal clubs, but make no mistake,  the game of hurling was alive and kicking. Rumour and debate about who was the best hurling team raged throughout the land. And so it came to pass that a match was organised between Kilkenny city and Thurles. It was decided that it should be held in Ballingarry, to give everyone an equal chance to attend. The Sunday arrived and the sun was out for a change, making everything and everyone sparkle. The crowd that turned up to watch, arriving mostly by foot and by donkey, must’ve numbered in the tens of thousands. There were no grandstands or seats, so people stood on tiptoe or climbed on each other’s shoulders to get a view.

The Thurles team got there early and started warming up. This mostly consisted of jogging on the spot occasionally and passing a couple of hip flasks of poitín around. One player in particular stood out amongst them. Dermot Grogan was an absolute brute. The hurl was a twig between his fingers, his legs were like tree trunks and a family of four could’ve rested quite comfortably across his shoulders. The coach, a wiry ferret of a man, stood in front of him waving his arms about and barking intricate instructions.  Dermot stood as still as a rock,  impassive, breathing through his open mouth and staring down at the ferret.

With not much time to spare, the Kilkenny team arrived. Before running onto the field, they took a knee in front of their coach, Mary O’Sullivan. Mary was in her seventies, a diminutive lady with a walking stick and a sharpness in her eye that commanded attention. She owned The Field pub in Kilkenny and had the team’s utmost respect. A master tactician, Mary could read a game like an open book and could turn the tide of a match just by waving her walking stick. The team listened to Mary’s last minute instructions like crack commandos listening to a venerable General. She finished what she was saying and sent out her troops.

The very second the game started, so did the rain. It came down in sheets so thick, you couldn’t see the opposite side of the pitch. The players could barely hear the referee’s whistle above the roar of the water. It didn’t take long for the entire field to become a quagmire with hurlers sliding around in the mud, struggling to see the sliotar, let alone hit it. A few times Kilkenny’s best player, T.J Mahoney (a man who’d had a hurl in his hands from the cradle), came close to scoring, but the bulk of Dermot Grogan, stood firmly in the mouth of the goal, wasn’t letting anything pass him. Due to a little too much “warming up” Thurles were disorganised and sloppy in attack, but with Dermot in goal, they were practically impenetrable in defence. At half time the scores were locked at 0-0. The players trudged off; muddy, sodden and panting.

The ferret went into a tirade directed at the rest of the rapidly sobering Thurles team. In contrast, Mary O’Sullivan merely let the Kilkenny team catch their breath and gave each of them an apple. Just as they began to head back out, she caught the arm of T.J Mahoney and whispered something in his ear. T.J nodded and ran onto the field.

The second half began with rain still lashing down. Thurles, now completely sober, became an efficient machine in attack and harried the Kilkenny back line enough to get two points on the board. It wasn’t pretty hurling, but through sheer determination,  they made it work. The clock was ticking down and as much as Kilkenny tried to break through the wall of Dermot, nothing seemed to work.

T.J Mahoney stood deep in his own half as Dermot Grogan hit a massive puck out from his goal, sending the sliotar soaring into the heavens. There was only a minute to go and T.J knew it was now or never. The adrenaline coursed through his veins as he watched the sliotar begin it’s descent through the rain. A Thurles forward was positioning himself underneath it. T.J Mahoney, with the composure that only truly great players possess, ran behind him, climbed into the air and took the catch with one hand outstretched. There was a collective gasp from the crowd, then he hit the ground running. He began a breathtaking solo run up the sideline, dodging Thurles defenders, somehow keeping the sliotar in play and steaming towards the goal like a freight train. Soon he’d left all other defenders in his wake and only his nemesis stood between him and the goal. The final few metres happened in the blink of an eye, but for T.J Mahoney it felt like slow motion. He ran passed Dermot from right to left, seemingly forgetting to even shoot for goal. As he passed, Dermot almost imperceptibly shifted weight onto his left foot. T.J pivoted with the grace of a ballerina, tossed the sliotar and fired it with such force that the crack could be heard for miles. It moved so fast that no human eye could see it, but there it was, sitting behind Dermot in the back of the goal. Thurles 2-3 Kilkenny. T.J had pulled off a miracle, Kilkenny had stolen victory from the jaws of defeat and a legend was born.

*T.J Mahoney’s hurl sits in the hands of a teddy bear, just to the left of the rings board. What’s the teddy bear there for, I hear you ask? Well that’s another story altogether.