Scuttles to google…
1 Like
Tiredness still sweeps over him in waves. He goes to bed early, but his body needs a nap during the day.
Such a lack of energy can last for up to a year, but in the grand scheme of things he knows it is a small burden to carry.
Remembering names can also be problematic. He reckons he is become a bit snappier too, more quick-tempered — character traits, he jests, completely at odds with the mild-mannered footballer he was.
Still, day by day, things continue to improve. The support from former team-mates and opponents has been humbling.
Sounds like is now suffering from Long Covid.
2 Likes
Conal Keaney. 20 years on the road. One of our best Hurlers and a serious competitior
10 Likes
Legend
1 Like
How good a hurler was Keaney relative to a footballer?
As a footballer I remember him being a good forward, a serious ball winner but whose finishing and decision making tended to let him down.
20 years at senior inter county as an outfielder is serious going. He has played with some amount of fellas. He has a nice haul of club medals also that I’m sure he’d like to improve on also.
He was a hard bastard who could play it many ways. He had no fear of lowering the blade. There was a serious picture of a collision of him with John Small in last years Dublin football final.
3 Likes
He was a smashing footballer …very physical but also very clever and a sweet left foot …think if gilroy had given him the same run at full forward that he gave o gara then who knows what would have happened… …put in the corner or on the wing with Dublin but didn’t really have the pace for them positions
1 Like
Yeah I’d liken him to O’Gara as a forward but with more end product.
He always struck me as the type of player who the opposition would be fearful of what he could do but at the same time he would frustrate the hell out of him own management and team with some aspects of his play being very erratic.
Keaney was a way better hurler. A decent footballer but very one footed. He jacked in the football at the end of 2010 which was spectacularly bad timing on his part though it was becoming clear at that stage that Gilroy didn’t fancy him.
He was a very good hurler and could have been great if he didn’t give it up for 4 or 5 years at a crucial stage in his career. I wouldn’t blame him for his decision because Humphrey Kelleher was Dublin Hurling manager at the time and it was a shit show of seismic proportions. However the hiatus probably prevented him from reaching his full potential as a hurler. Having said that he had some great days when he came back particularly under Daly.
The below point is one of my best gaa memories. The final nail in the Kilkenny coffin in 2011 League Final. Kilkenny were a brilliant side at the time. I went to Croke Park expecting a hammering. It may have been only the league but it felt like everything that day.
11 Likes
o gara was way more athletic with little end product but Keaney was a lot silkier and could kick points from miles out .Keaneys problem was he was used to carrying teams to victory on his own .so when it came to decoy runs or hard running ,just winning the ball and laying it off that wasn’t in his nature .o gara had no problem doing that …gilroy wanted that type of lad in ff to do the shovelling for Bernard brogan who got footballer of the year that year …
8 Likes
serious servant of Dublin GAA hurling and football
Get him on the next series of Laochra Gael, he a real Laochra Gael
Dublin’s best ever hurler?
1 Like
Did Keaney start vs Cork in the 2010 semi final?
Came on at the very end I think
1 Like
That man did some service to Dublin GAA at county and club level. Boden footballers were always far stronger when the hurlers got knocked out and he was like a dog without a bone.
On a drunken Monday after a Leinster football final win in the early noughties (when it was a thing for Dublin to celebrate on a second day) someone made the mistake of telling Keaney he was the bulb off the lad from Prison Break. The same fella got pinned to the wall until he explained it was a tv show and he wasn’t calling keaney a convict. I suppose you had to be there.
5 Likes
I met Keaney at the ploughing match in Midleton circa 2005 and he was very sound.
Told us in his lovely Boden accent “He missed the hurling”.
1 Like
Best I’ve ever seen. A genuinely great hurler imo, had it all and I’ve said it many times on here before, wasted his prime years with the footballers when he could have spearheaded the Dublin hurling surge. They’d have won more than 1 Leinster and 1 League if they had him for those years.
4 Likes
He surely would have made the difference vs Tipp in the 2011 Semi final had he been fit.
1 Like
Stick to the Tennis bro
Serious hurler, great physicality and wristy too. Was a natural 6 I thought, shoe horned into the forwards as Dublin needed him there. Coming off the bike that time fucked him for a while.
Must have good breeding, where are his parents from?
1 Like