Irish players with GAA roots

ROB KEARNEY

As is abundantly clear from his peerless excellence under the high ball, Kearney played with Cooley Kickhams in Louth all the way through to under-18s and virtually always in midfield. He then played for three years on the Louth minor team, coming within a kick of a Leinster championship final at Croke Park only to be denied by Dublin.

TOMMY BOWE

Played Gaelic football with his local club Emyvale and with the Monaghan under-16s and under-17s. “I only trained with the Monaghan minors, I never actually played for them,” he points out.

BRIAN O’DRISCOLL

Played Gaelic football at primary school, Belgrove Boys, and with Clontarf GAA club, combining this with rugby even after going to Blackrock in secondary school, playing a few games up until under-15.

LUKE FITZGERALD

The son of a celebrated former Irish tighthead combined rugby with football and hurling, playing both codes in his primary school and then with Naomh Olaf until he was 13.

RONAN O’GARA

Combined rugby (with Cork Con), soccer (with Summerstown) and tennis with football and hurling in the Bishopstown GAA Street Leagues and Scoil Spioraid Naomh, continuing with football longer than hurling, which he gave up at about 12, as he was better at football.

TOMÁS O’LEARY

Son of Cork hurling legend Seanie, who was on the Cork four-in-a-row team of 1981-84, O’Leary is the most famed GAA player in the Irish squad. He played hurling, football and soccer at St Patrick’s Boys School in Gardner’s Hill, thereafter combining rugby at CBC Cork with hurling and football with Erin’s Owen until he was 19. In his second year on the Cork minor hurling team he captained them to an All-Ireland title in 2001 at the age of 17, and then played a year with the county’s under-21s, whereupon he was offered a year with the Irish Academy by the IRFU.

MARCUS HORAN

Horan attributes his hand-eye co-ordination to hurling, which he played to intermediate level with Clonlara in the Clare Championship and had trials for his county, but maintains: “I would have been average.”

JOHN HAYES

The Bull didn’t play his first rugby match until he was 19 prior to which he played Gaelic football and hurling with his local club, Doon CBS, pretty much in every position from the full-back line to the full-forward line, though by his own admission wasn’t especially good at either.

DONNCHA O’CALLAGHAN

Played Gaelic football with his club, Bishopstown, from the age of 10 to 15 and although hurling is there now it wasn’t then. He and his brothers combined this with rugby. “We used to get brain damage from the coach to ‘give a bit to your parish’. We’d have a game for Highfield and then jump over the wall to play a football match, normal stuff for a kid.”

DAVID WALLACE

Wallace only played football at lunchtime in Monkstown National School in Cork

JAMIE HEASLIP

Combined rugby and swimming with some Gaelic football on and off with Naas until he was 15, playing in midfield and at full forward though, as he quips, “nothing like big-time Kearney.”

JERRY FLANNERY

Starred in goal for St Munchin’s.

PAUL O’CONNELL

Played hurling and football from under-8 to under-14 with South Liberties in Limerick, the club whose colours JP McManus’s horses run in and who backboned the 1973 All-Ireland winners. A midfielder in hurling and a full forward in football, unlike his rugby, golf and swimming, “I never really excelled”.