It’s a rainy September night in Kilkenny City and the locals are out in force to welcome home their heroes.
An estimated 30,000 brave the elements to celebrate the Cats getting revenge over Tipperary in the 2011 All-Ireland hurling final and reclaiming Liam McCarthy after their rivals had halted the ‘Drive for Five’ a year earlier.
John Mulhall, a 65th minute replacement for Richie Power, takes the mic and leads the assembled crowd in a rendition of ‘The Hurler’s Song’, which the young panel member embellishes with some explicit lyrics.
“Now we’ve taken back our throne/Tipperary póg mo hón/Liam McCarthy’s coming fuckin’ home.”
The crowd go wild, but it seems to go down like a shit balloon with his manager. While Mulhall is being chaired around the stage by his delighted team-mates, Cody takes the microphone.
“It is a great night of celebration and you have probably witnessed a performance by a fella who is going to have the shortest intercounty career of all time.”
Mulhall was gone off the panel by the start of the 2012 Championship.
It is a little reminiscent of Giovanni Trapattoni taking a dislike to Andy Reid because of a late night singsong in the Republic of Ireland team hotel in Germany. However, speaking on the GAA Hour Hurling Show, Mulhall dismissed the idea his performance on the back of an artic lorry in a carpark was responsible.
“I came back in January for training and got into it,” said Mulhall, who is now hurling with Kildare in Division 2A. “That league I was getting 10 minutes at the end of matches.
“Maybe there was pressure in my own head from that song, or pressure to get back. I was on the panel maybe two years at that stage, coming on every game but not starting.
“Then people like [Cillian] Buckley started coming, but I started the league semi final and got a point. I was delighted. Then in the league final, Buckley started wing-forward and I thought ‘Ah, jesus’. I really thought I would be in.”
Mulhall came on int he league final but that was his last appearance for the Kilkenny senior hurlers, however he refuses to place any significance on his lewd lyrics.
“I just wasn’t hurling well enough, that was it,” he said.
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