It’s one thing thanking a GAA background for your rugby skills when you’re Irish, but what if you hail from the Land of the Long White Cloud?
Tommy Bowe, Rob Kearney, Sean Cronin, Sean O’Brien and many Irish internationals before them have credited the GAA with helping them develop the kicking and catching skills that give them something of an edge over their international opponents.
One just had to take a glance at Cronin hoofing the ball clear off his left while on the run against Canada to know that the hooker was an accomplished Gaelic footballer.
Kearney and Bowe’s ability to field a high ball over the head can be traced back to playing minor football for Louth and Monaghan respectively.
‘So what?’ you ask. Sure, aren’t there over 200,000 senior playing members of GAA clubs across the country, it would be weird if a good portion of the Irish team had not played a bit of Gaelic football or hurling in their time.
Far more impressive is a New Zealander who credits the GAA with improving his rugby game. And we’re not talking about Michael Bent’s photo opportunity with a hurl four years ago, when he was drafted in to play for Ireland thanks to his granny’s heritage.
Nope, we’re talking about All Blacks legend and arguably the greatest No 8 of all time, Zinzan Brooke, who took up the sport as a teenager in Auckland – convinced to play for Roskill Rangers by another former All Black Bernie McCahill.
Roskill Rangers are now known as Marist Rangers, who you may remember are the club lucky enough to be calling on the services of Rory O’Carroll at the moment.
Speaking on Thursday’s Off The Ball Brooke spelled out how committed he was to the club – even when in the midst of his famed Test career.
“I played it for about seven years, so I still remember playing against France in 1994 on a Saturday and played Gaelic on a Sunday – and I won that game as well,” said Brooke, who in his autobiography explained the influence Gaelic football had on his 11-year career. A career that famously included a 48-metre drop goal in the 1995 World Cup that Sean Cavanagh would be proud of.
“Were I an Irishman I’d play Gaelic football till the day I dropped dead,” he wrote in ‘Zinny – The Zinzan Brooke Story’.
“I unashamedly wallowed in the game, great for elevation skills, anticipation, kicking off either foot (a must), running, passing by hand or kick-passing. And the contact! The contact made the blood run whether you were taking it or giving it.”
Other than O’Carroll, Brooke has a more immediate, more painful connection to another Dublin footballer – the late, great Jimmy Stynes.
He came up against the Aussie Rules Hall of Famer during the summer months, when both were using their free time to compete in the Australasian GAA championships.
“In the Australasian championships we played a team which had a giant named Jimmy Stynes they had caught and caged somewhere in the wilds.
“They unleashed him every Sunday and pointed him toward the opposition and this day they pointed him at me and said, `Kill, Jimmy, kill.’ My head came up to his armpit, which was an area I would not have chosen, but there it was all the same, just above my nose.
“‘Zinny’, I said, ‘you’re not going to play much ball unless you get under this guy and take his legs out’. So with impeccable timing I drove into his legs and on over the touchline and planted him into the Carlaw Park grandstand. He did not die. He got up, shook himself shaggily, grinned amiably, said, `Kill, Jimmy, kill’ and came right back into the game.”
After a brush with Stynes, Brooke would fear no Test rugby player.
Aaron Kernan joins Colm Parkinson on The GAA Hour to explain the work he’s doing for the Club Players Association. Derry captain Chrissy McKaigue talks Slaughtneil and a Dublin club advertising for hurlers gets a sore touch. Subscribe here on iTunes.
