The opposition number 4 had his number
More than likely a nordie. Only one needed to take on the whole shower of treacherous, southern bastards.
‘I could see by my team-mates’ faces that it wasn’t good’
Ross King tells Shane Keegan about the horrific injury that has shocked the game of hurling
Shane Keegan
October 25 2018, 12:01am, The Times
King in hospital in Portlaoise shortly after he was injured in the county final
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On October 7, Camross and Rathdowney-Errill met in the Laois senior hurling final. They had won seven of the last ten Laois championships between them so interest in the game was high. Camross won, 2-15 to 0-19, and in doing so claimed their 26th county title. An incident that took place during the game gained national attention. Laois captain Ross King suffered a facial injury just before half-time. A slow motion clip of the incident soon circulated on social media.
On Tuesday I sat down with King to get his take on what happened and how he feels now. Full disclosure: Ross — or Roddy as he is known locally — is a friend of mine, which is part of the reason he agreed to be interviewed by me for The Times. The other motivating factor, as he explains, is he does not want what happened to him to happen to others.
Shane Keegan: How is your mouth now?
Ross King: Not too bad now. A lot of work done and still a good bit more to do. I have two root canals to do next Thursday. I had five stitches pulled out last week and the last two were pulled out yesterday. The scar is healing up. I got the braces tightened yesterday too. I have two teeth dead and they’ll blacken over time so I’ll have to get them whitened continuously from now on.
SK: How much did all that cost?
RK: So far well over €4,000, heading for €5,000.
SK: Who pays for that?
RK: The club insurance will cover me up to €4,500.
SK: Had you any problems eating?
RK: Yeah, I only started back eating solids yesterday. I lost nearly a stone over those two weeks. I mean, you won’t fatten a bullock on water. I was really just consuming protein shakes for the first ten days. They were disgusting. I moved onto mashed bananas, porridge and scrambled egg after a while. Because of the cuts in my upper and lower lip I couldn’t eat anything too flavoursome because it would lift you out of it with the pain if it seeped into the cuts.
SK: Did you miss any work with it?
RK: I missed the whole first week after it because I physically couldn’t speak. My lips were kind of stuck together. I had no appetite, no energy and just no interest in anything really. The second week I had to go to Dublin to get work done on my teeth on the Monday but I was back in around the office and on the phone from the Tuesday. I missed yesterday again to get more work done and I have another two days next week. Overall I’ll have missed the best part of two full working weeks over the course of the month. Glanbia have been great towards me with it all.
SK: Can you take me back to the incident. From your perspective, what happened?
RK: I can remember the lead-up very clearly. There was a bit of a ruck developing under the stand and I saw a Camross player make two ridiculous pulls, neither one of them on the ball. The pull that infuriated me was when John Purcell (Rathdowney/Errill player) had the ball in his hand, twisted his body to escape the tackle and he got an awful belt in the back of his calf as he was spinning away. I just don’t agree with that kind of stuff at all. So I went in to hit the lad a shoulder. He saw me coming and his first reaction was to hit me with the butt of his hurl into my mouth.That’s exactly how I remember it anyway.
SK: What were your immediate thoughts in the seconds after it happened?
RK: I needed the video to help me with this because I was actually heavily concussed. I just remember trying to use my tongue to find where my teeth were. I was panicking because my poor mother spent three grand trying to get my teeth right in the first place. I couldn’t find my front right tooth and the tooth beside it because they were up against the roof of my mouth. That gave me the initial fright. Then our physio Mags O’Shea came in to look at me. She put her two hands on my shoulders and looked at me and said “F**k sake Roddy” and that reaction gave me another fright. I couldn’t see myself so I didn’t know what was going on but I could see by the other players’ reactions when they looked at me that it wasn’t good. I put my tongue to my lip and it went straight through. That definitely wasn’t a good sign.
SK: Did you think it had been an intentional blow?
RK: Absolutely. I can still see it in his face.
SK: Did you speak to the referee at all before you left the field of play?
RK: I can vaguely remember putting my arm on his shoulder to say, “what are you going to do about this?” I didn’t think I’d have to say anymore because I knew by everybody’s reaction that he [the Camross player] had done something seriously wrong. On the video I can see myself walking away after it and nothing was done. Then I was on the line and a couple of people came up to see me and they got a fright. I started getting more upset by their reactions, so I ran down the tunnel under the stand because I didn’t want anyone else coming down to me. I went into a room on my own and two paramedics followed me in. Then, the Laois doctor came down to see me. I remember just being very confused.
King said he received messages of support from people in New York and BostonMORGAN TREACY/INPHO
SK: Did you think there might be any hope of you getting back out to hurl?
RK: I did. I said to them in that room, “give me a painkiller, stitch me up and let me out”. I still didn’t fully realise the extent of the damage. The doctor gave me two painkillers but then I couldn’t swallow them. You wouldn’t realise this but you need to be able to close your lips to swallow. I tried to use the back of my tongue to get them to go down but I couldn’t. I still thought I could be stitched up and sent back out but the blood was starting to really pump. And I wasn’t co-ordinated either. I was running from one corner of the room to the next trying to get myself going. I couldn’t understand why they were standing around looking at me as if it was a funeral. I still hadn’t seen myself so only had their faces to go by. A minute beforehand I’d been hurling away, now I was heading for an ambulance. I was just so confused.
SK: How did things proceed after you left the venue?
RK: I came out the back door of the stand and there was everybody having a smoke because it was half-time. As I headed towards the ambulance a chap from Errill stopped me to shake my hand but then he looked at my face and he went pale. I was in the back of the ambulance then and Sharon McDonald, the Laois doctor, rang my mother. She knows her through work. I didn’t really want Mam seeing me. She arrived over with Dad and when she saw me she just started crying and that got me more upset of course. She went away because she wasn’t able for it and Dad jumped into the back of the ambulance but he was struggling to look me in the face. I do remember a funny bit then because they asked him to fill out a form with some details but he didn’t even know my date of birth. He’s a disaster. I just grabbed the pen off him and filled it out myself.
SK: There were media reports that you had to go straight to James’s hospital and that you’d lost two teeth. I take it this wasn’t the case?
RK: No, I didn’t have to go to Dublin until the dentist visit on the Tuesday. I didn’t lose any teeth. What saved my teeth was that I had braces about four years ago so I have a retainer at the back of my teeth. It’s basically like a fencing wire for cattle. That kept my teeth in their roots. The dentist said only for that I would have lost two. The bottom two went back towards my tongue and also split the inside of my lower lip.
SK: At what stage did you hear the result in the match?
RK: I was following it in the A&E. I got a loan of somebody’s phone and was following the updates.
SK: How did the result make you feel?
RK: When I thought we could still win it I was having visions of the boys coming in to see me with the cup. But it wasn’t to be. At that time the score overshadowed any physical pain I felt. I just felt so sorry for the lads. Jimmy Corrigan (captain), my heart was broke for him to be honest. I just thought it was such an unjust way to lose.
SK: What time did you get home?
RK: I got home at around 10.30 after getting what felt like 200 needles stuck in me. It had been a long process. Scans on my face, needles in my mouth, needle in my arse for tetanus, one in my shoulder for pain, four in my lips for anaesthetic, getting stitched up. I wasn’t long home and there was a knock at the door and Paddy Purcell (Rathdowney/Errill player) was there. Mam answered it and he said: “Bernie is it all right if the lads come in”. As if she could say no. I have a small house here as you can see but the next thing 25 lads bowled in. These are lads that haven’t drank in weeks and they were beery enough now and the match is in the distance so there was great crack had. We were all around in a circle and at first they were all shaking my hand and asking if I was OK. But then Shane Dollard started up the jokes. He says: “Thank God you had a girlfriend before this happened because you wouldn’t get one after it, bud”. He was making me laugh so hard and I was trying to hold my lips together because I could feel the stitches stretch. I had to let a roar at him: “Dollard will you f*** up, you’re killing me here”. He was brilliant though. It might sound strange to some but it was actually a special, special moment for me and probably beat any medals I’ve received. It felt amazing having them all there to be honest.
SK: What did you make of the social media pictures that emerged from the Camross celebrations over the next few days?
RK: To be honest, it was no surprise whatsoever to me. I just thought, this is the type of character you’re dealing with. But it didn’t bother me, I was emotionless to it because I wouldn’t have expected anything different. It affected my family more, and that’s the more upsetting thing. With this whole injury, to me, I can handle it, but my mother and father are so upset over it and that’s the worst part. In terms of the social media side of it, I was actually happy it came out because it just highlighted and reinforced my feelings. There are some bad characters and sometimes they’re highlighted on the field. Then when they are exposed to beer they show themselves as being fools. It didn’t bother me, I was just happy that other people realised what type of character we’re dealing with.
From their point of view, the fact that they can even go and appeal the decision? I can count on one hand how many people from there contacted me. When you win a match it’s so easy to shake a loser’s hand whereas it takes a bigger man for the loser to go over to the winner and apologise.
But he came out the winner and hadn’t even the decency or character to text, phone, call over. Last year, a man I respect, Mick McEvoy (Clough/Ballacolla) hurt Dollard by accident, a genuine accident. It was an eye injury. He rang him, contacted him regularly to see how he was.
SK: How did you feel about the incident becoming such big news?
RK: In a strange way I was happy. Now with the age of social media it’s there for everybody to see. I’ve got messages from as far away as New York and Boston from lads who’ve seen this. People can make their own minds up now about what they’ve seen rather than forming an opinion based on what somebody else has told them. Woolly (Colm) Parkinson picked up on the video and the pictures and it really spread fast from there then. I was happy it was highlighted.
I’m not a parent but I got messages and phone calls from people who are parents saying: “Little Johnny was at the match on Sunday. You’re his favourite hurler and he said, ‘Mammy I don’t want to hurl if what happened to Ross King is what’s going to happen to me’. I mean, I love hurling for Laois especially since Cheddar (Seamus Plunkett) came in and instilled such pride in us all. I don’t want young people turning away from hurling because of what happened me. That’s why I was happy it came out on social media because it highlights it and hopefully it doesn’t happen again.
I wouldn’t actually even wish it on the man who did it to me and that’s saying a lot. I’ve had needles shoved into my gums, mouth, lips, pulling, yanking, dragging, slapping braces on, putting stitches in, pulling stitches out, two root canals, six trips to Dublin, plenty more to come, days off work and constant phone calls. Mam, Dad and me are all in public jobs where we’re dealing with people so we’re constantly being bombarded and we’re all just drained from it. I had the blinds pulled here, doors locked for the first ten days because I didn’t want anyone calling. Not out of badness. I’ve had young lads sending me get well cards. One girl sent me a medal to keep me safe. Beautiful gestures. But you still can’t help feeling low and you are drained mentally. I’m over a lot of the physical side but the mental side I don’t feel anywhere near over it. I don’t feel justice has been served after all that’s gone on. It’s just insulting.
SK: Had you any kind of prior relationship with the player, good or bad, before the incident?
RK: Never spoke to him in my life to be honest. Maybe passed him in a pub once, that’s about it.
SK: Has the player or the club contacted you since the incident?
RK: Him, no. One club member contacted me that I would respect, wrote me a letter. But no, certainly no official contact from the club.
SK: The player involved was initially given a two-match suspension but you found this morning that it has been rescinded on appeal. How does that make you feel?
R K: Yeah, I got a text off a member of the county board this morning to tell me while I was in work. I read it and it just knocked the wind out of me. I showed it to some work mates and they were reading it saying: “No, no, that can’t be right?”
My initial feeling was, “f*** it, they are making a joke of me here”. I just thought of my mother and father and what their reaction was going to be. I felt like I was being shown no respect. I felt insulted. I’ve hurled for Laois for six years and I love it, I absolutely love it. But the powers-that-be are making it hard for me to go back again and do something I love so much.
King says that he does not have the hunger to train for hurlingTOMMY DICKSON/INPHO
I’ve given everything for Laois for six years and now I’m getting no respect, no protection. Then there’s guys on other teams who won’t go in and hurl for the county and they are getting away without bans. I mean, we have a local ref here and he’s after getting a suspension for something he said to the ref after the game. I mean, he’s been given a ban for verbal abuse while the player gets away with no ban after inflicting €5,000 worth of dental damage, not to mention the mental side of things he’s put my parents through. I don’t even know who to be angry at. The principle of everything that’s happened is turning me off hurling. I just have no interest in anything right now.
SK: You’re questioning your commitment to hurling?
RK: I can’t imagine my life without hurling. It’s all I do, it’s all I want to do. I want to be up in the field practising frees and shots. I live it, I love it. It’s all I’ve wanted since I was young. But where do I go from here? If you were in a job and you felt you were getting undermined while others who weren’t putting in the effort were getting rewarded then how would you feel going in to work every day?
That’s how I feel at the minute and it has got me questioning my commitment. I’m not a confrontational person and I don’t want to be the centre of this controversy. I certainly don’t want to be highlighting Laois hurling in any bad way but it has to be talked about if things are going to change going forward.
But I don’t want to be a thorn in Eddie Brennan’s (new Laois manager) side. I don’t want any of our club hurlers to be reluctant about going in to represent their county because of this. If you are able to do it, then do it. We only have a ten-year window at this. Get your body right, get your mind right and do it. We’re the ones representing Laois. There’s so few core hurling Laois people and they are mad for something to shout about so if you can do that for them then do it. Over the last few years as captain I felt the responsibility to make lads aware of what they were representing. Just trying to carry through what Cheddar instilled in us. I think of Cheddar, Cahir Healy, Joe Fitz, Tommy Fitz and what they’ve given. Then I think to myself, “who am I to turn around and say I’m not hurling with Laois just because I got a knock”. But that is how I feel and I can’t help how I feel. These are guys I idolise and I don’t want to let them down or let Laois down but I feel like I have no choice. I need somebody to help me out here but where do you go? Where do you go?
SK: If you are back in a Laois jersey next year, would you have any problem hurling alongside any of the players involved in the incident?
RK: Not really. I’ve disliked lads I’ve hurled with in the past but the moment I see them taking a bad belt to win a free for the team, buying into the team culture, then I respect them as a person and find it easy to put away any personal disagreement I might have with them. This is just a bad knock at the end of the day and Laois hurling will be there regardless of what I do. And I don’t want to ever say, “I’m not hurling for Laois”. It’s just at the moment, I’m just beat back. I’m wore out mentally with the whole thing. Maybe I just need time away to let it all settle. It’s all very raw, especially after hearing the ban is lifted.
SK: What would you say to those parents who have expressed concerns about letting their kids hurl after what’s happened?
RK: When I’m talking to the parents or kids, I just put on the brave face and say: “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be back and I’ll be flying next year.” I love saying to young lads: “I can’t wait to play senior with you in ten years’ time”. Get them going away from me smiling. Deep down I have no problem telling a young lad to go and hurl because this is a one in a million kind of injury and it’s unlikely to happen again. It shouldn’t have happened, and I hope it never does happen again. I don’t want to imagine watching what happened to me happen to somebody else in another few years’ time. But I don’t think you find these kinds of characters in every team. It’s rare enough.
SK: What next for you?
RK: First and foremost, I just want to get my mouth sorted. I want less trips to Dublin. I want less stress on my family. I want time away. I can’t picture myself having the hunger to run around a field in the middle of November. Usually I really like that side of training but I don’t have the hunger for it at the moment. I don’t have the hunger for anything hurling related at the moment and that’s all I can say right now.
Good interview. Didnt spare anyone!
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Roddy is a straight enough character, there’s not much wrong in what he said there. Anyone of us on a field know when we’ve been done. You don’t leave a few inches on the end of a hurley to go through a lads faceguard for nothing. The fact that Camross had the fucking neck to appeal it says all you need to know.
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yeah at least he was honest with his opinions and didnt beat around the bush.
But to be honest, I disagree with you @myboyblue and it seems peoples perceptions of the player involved on both sides and the club are letting emotions get in the way.
The video released, in a complete slow mo, shows King running at Dooley to flatten him Dooley turns and instinctively puts his hurl up to break the shoulder being aimed front on at him. In that split second, he didnt think about putting the butt of the hurl through his faceguard, and the force of the hit comes from Kings running at pace, not with Dooley swinging his hurl.
Camross may well indeed be a shower of absolute cunts, and Dooley obviously is a fucking prick with the swinging he did before the incident and the bullshit on snappychat afterwards, but King was the one who ran to hit him and ended up worse off.
I disagree with you. But I respect your right to be wrong.
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Thats too magnanimous for TFK. You stupid prick. Fuck King, he only got what was coming to him.
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He touched on it there, but I’d say Eddie Brennan is ripping his hair out at all of this. Camross are useless for Laois anyway, they send hardly anyone in at any age group, but if Rathdowney Errill were to pull the pin, Laois GAA would have to pull up the tents and shuffle off entirely.
Half right there, King did put himself in the shop window to get the belt. But he’d be slated for looking on from a distance at what he saw happen a team mate. ( someone should have absolutely dusted Dooley by the way )
But, Dooley should have walked for the ridiculous pulls & that SAD little cunt O’Brien should be permantly placed into a boot to rot somewhere.
His actions against one of his own has reignited the whole sorry mess.
Dooley will be sorted on the field. That prick O’Brien should never officiate in Laois again.
the curse of lower ranked counties, club fighting fucking up county teams. Sure Wicklow football for years was fucked with Rathnew and everyone hating them. Camross are renowned for their shite, how they still manage to get away with it in this era of hurling is amazing. Most timber merchant clubs have gone away or changed, they seem to be the only ones still at it.
Is he the lad who tried to do someone in the video and came off worse?
agree fully there. Dooley without doubt should have been shown a red card for the pulls. Because the referee fucked up so much, he only gave him a yellow for that. It was the hit on King that got the retrospective action as they couldnt do anything with the first incident.
Camross live in their own little bubble. It was always said as long as I can remember that Camross may not start the row, but they’ll fucking finish it. Cheddar did his best to pull them in, and got some success, but even he couldn’t manage it entirely.
Speaking of Cheddar and Camross, always good to resurrect this
I don’t think anyone can truly explain how dense the referee in question is.
Remind me, is he the fella who sent Cody off?
Yep.
Is he living & working in Co Laois or what?
I’m not too sure. Stapleton got 8 weeks, apparently what he didn’t say to him at half time, full time, and on the way to his car, was then picked up upon by his wife who went to town on O Brien as well
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Yeah, I agree with that. The terrible outcome for King and the wild pulling beforehand seems to be clouding people’s judgement about the mouth injury.