Padraig O’Hora is being called all sorts of names because he, you guessed it, called David Clifford all sorts of names.
There’s an irony in there somewhere. But just because he chatted a bit of nonsense and gave a bit of lip doesn’t mean that he’s, as many people are saying, a bad skin.
O’Hora was faced with the unenviable task of picking up the best forward in the game in, unbelievably, a one-on-one situation and as a man who’s faced down similar battles with similar tactics before, Eamon McGee saw where the Mayo man was coming from. He’s been that soldier.
“Even if it was unprovoked, this doesn’t define O’Hora. It doesn’t define him because he’s a good guy and people should remember that.
“People you know, I seen it yesterday on social media, people making this judgement call on his overall character, as an overall person because he talks a bit of nonsense during 70 minutes of football like.
“Like, I was an awful, I don’t know can you say it, dickhead, for the 60-70 minutes and then after that I’d like to think I was a good enough skin. But for that 60-70 minutes, I was just being a dick most of the time to be honest with you.”
– Clifford's total and utter class
– Galway's video-analysis
– SLEDGING in the GAA@Darransull86, @hanley_finian and @EamonMcGee are on the job to discuss all the hot topics after a brilliant weekend 🔥🎧 https://t.co/gyRdtVb5hv🎧 pic.twitter.com/i7hTuc1fJ2
— The GAA Hour (@TheGAAHour) April 4, 2022
“The one thing I would say on the sledging is there’s a line,” the Gaoth Dobhair man continued.
“If you ever take it personal, it’s grand me going at Darran O’Sullivan or Finian Hanley and saying ‘Jesus, you’re not too good today.’ But if I take anything personal into that there, that’s crossing the line and that’s the kind of sledging we don’t need.
“I enjoy the bit of flippant banter that goes on during games, during the Tyrone and Armagh games – I loved that and do you know, the people saying you’re a total arsehole if you do say something (I wouldn’t agree with that.)
Host Darran O’Sullivan brought up one of McGee’s more infamous trash-talking episodes when, in a one-on-one battle with Eoghan O’Gara, he managed to get into the Dublin forward’s head.
“There was savage competition for places in the Dublin team at that time,” says McGee, “so I always thought like, them Dublin forwards, they couldn’t afford to make many mistakes or else there’ll be a boy coming in for them.”
“So I says right, I’m going to play on this on O’Gara because I won a ball or two and I says ‘Jesus Eoghan, that’s Mannion warming up there now.’ And I knew then, when he looked across, he was worried because he goes, ‘Jesus is he?’ And I knew then there was a kind of natural worry and that I had got at him then.”
Clifford did his talking on the scoreboard pic.twitter.com/dVOHO2VkXI
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) April 3, 2022
Former Galway full back and Ireland International Rules captain Finian Hanley agrees with McGee and says that, in his experience, the Australian international rules team were the worst he’d ever come across for sledging.
“When we were in Australia playing international rules, the Aussies were brutal, the stuff that was being said down there, they’d call ya anything, all sorts of names. I believe it goes on huge over there. But as Eamon says, once it gets personal, listen I’ve heard some really crappy personal stuff said to guys on the pitch as well. And that’s when it crosses the line.
“Look I don’t know what Padraig O’Hora was saying to David Clifford yesterday. For three or four days, you have to come up with a game-plan and stick to it in your own head because either way, you’re goosed going into mark that lad. Andy Dufresne couldn’t get out of that one. He stuck to his plan, he kept going with it and he shook his hand at the end of it. No big deal.”
