It started off with a retired rugby star doing his old club a favour and trying to shed a few pounds in the process. It ended up with him playing in a county final.
Tomás O’Leary is finding some interesting ways to keep busy after hanging up his rugby boots.
The former Munster and Ireland scrum-half finished up his playing days in the lush setting of Montpellier, in the South of France, and enjoyed his first few months of retirement. Perhaps, he concedes, he enjoyed them too much.
“I put on a bit of weight after retiring from rugby,” he told The Hard Yards. “Four or five months in the South of France, with no rugby or no training. I put on about 12 kilos. I nearly hit the 100kg mark.”
O’Leary is looking a lot more like the svelte No.9 that rugby fans know so well – from Heineken Cup and Grand Slam glory days – and he has a couple of exploits to thank for it. At present, he is training four hours a day in preparation for his Sunday evening stints in RTE’s ‘Dancing with the Stars’.
He is also fresh off a run to the Cork county final with his old GAA club, Erin’s Own. O’Leary is a former All-Ireland minor winner, in hurling, and [from 2:00 below] he explained how a pub conversation led to his return to GAA after a gap of around 15 years.
“I got back to Ireland in August and I was in terrible nick,” O’Leary began.
“My team [Erin’s Own] is mainly a hurling team and they were playing the county quarter final on the Saturday and then out playing county championship, in the football, on the Monday night.
“I’d been having a few pints, for a few days, down in West Cork. Friday night and probably Saturday and the Saturday night as well. I got a text off one of the lads when I was on the way back up to Cork, on the Monday, saying they were short a few numbers and asking if I’d fall in. He said they wouldn’t bring me on unless they were really stuck.
“I went on the bench and go on for the last five minutes. Then we got to the quarter final and I came on the last five minutes, and did alright. I came on again in the semi but it went to a replay and I started that. I started the county final too but we lost that, unfortunately. It was great craic though.”
O’Leary downplays his contribution to getting Erin’s Own to the final – he scored an extra-time goal in that last four encounter of the Junior A championship, against Kilmacabea, before helping himself to 0-3 in the replay win.
He found the net in the JAFC final against Knocknagree but his team lost out 2-19 to 2-10 at Pairc Ui Rinn. To O’Leary, getting back involved and playing with some of his old friends was half of the fun.
“There were or three lads may age [34] who are still playing and who I would have played with when I was a kid,” he said, “so it was good to get back and play with them again.”
2018 will see O’Leary keep up the GAA, only his focus is on getting back into the Erin’s Own hurling team. The challenge will be seeing if he still possesses some of the skills that saw him win an All-Ireland at the age of 18. Keeping those kilos off is the added bonus.
