Kieran Donaghy got in a lot of faces over his illustrious basketball and GAA career. He only ever openly apologised for it once.
Now he regrets it.
‘Star’ began his senior Kerry career as a midfielder who felt it was best to catch the ball and ship it to Darragh O Sé or one of the other “skillful players” on his team.
He was re-purposed as a dominant target-man, up front, a few years into his intercounty career and never looked back. He took skills learned on the basketball court and used them to wreak havoc on opposition defences.
He had many a joust over his storied Kerry career and many of them were with northern powerhouses Tyrone and Armagh.
The All-Ireland winner sat down with Colm Parkinson for SportsJOE’s GAA Hour and gave further insight to some of the great tales in his autobiography ‘Kieran Donaghy: What do you think of that?’
He recalled the 2006 All-Ireland quarter final victory over Armagh, in which he scored a goal and got right up in the faces of goalkeeper Paul Hearty and defender Francie Bellew.
He made an apology on the national airwaves a couple of weeks later but it never sat well with him. Donaghy revealed:
“It was my uncle, Brian, that had a word with me. He’ll hate me saying that now but he was like, ‘Oh Jesus, you’ll have to go out and apologise. that was desperate – roaring in fellas’ faces’.
“I didn’t see any issues with it. I had been doing it all through my basketball career. He had been giving me plenty of it from minute one to minute 36, 38 or whatever and I had one chance to answer it back. That was the best way to answer it – stick it in the onion sack.
“I shouldn’t have apologised. I regret it now, to be honest, but my uncle said it was the right thing to do.
“I ended up getting man of the match in the semi-final against Cork and said ‘Do you know what? I’ll keep him happy now’. So I went, ‘Oh I’m sorry for shouting in the Armagh fella’s face’.”
Donaghy can still recall a piece written by Kingdom legend Dara Ó Cinnéide around the time – stating that he had nothing to apologise for – and he now agrees with it.
There you have it – sorry he was sorry when he really wasn’t sorry.
Colm Parkinson chats to Kerry GAA legend, and author, Kieran Donaghy in a special edition of The GAA Hour. Listen below or subscribe on iTunes
