Calling Noel O’ Leary a wannabie hard man shows he’s basing it on nothing at all.
Its attention seeking, and he wasn’t all that himself and can be quite whingy as well. Wasted his talent really.
Dont recall sayin anything like that mate.
+1
Did “woolie” ever read this below. A real hard man is someone who continues on in life even when shit tries to stop him and move him off course and is there for friends and family when in need. Parkinson gave up football for spurious reasons ( i realise he had an injury as well)
FOR a moment Noel O’Leary was sure he’d got away with it. It was down in Tralee on a shitty wet Saturday night, Kerry had just beaten them, and towards the end he’d snapped. The Kerry boys had been winding him up all night and then Tomas O Se kicked the ball at him and O’Leary had gone and eyeballed him, lashed out, and picked up his second yellow card for his troubles. As he was walking into the dressing room tunnel, Billy Morgan tapped him on the back and halfgrinned, “Well done, Noel!” At that, inwardly, O’Leary smiled too. Someone understood. If anyone could, it was Billy. The sight of that green and gold jersey, the passion, the fury; sure he knew all about it himself.
And then? Well then when they were inside, Morgan closed the door and proceeded to give his wing back, as O’Leary so eloquently puts it, “an unmerciful fecking”. In front of everyone. He shakes his head and grimaces bashfully at the memory, thought and accusation. Too fiery and volatile . . .
even by Morgan standards. "But he was dead right too, " says O’Leary. “I was a bit mad that night. A rush of blood to the head.”
Admit it. It’s how you know him, perceive him. There mightn’t be a better attacking wing-back left in this year’s championship or anyone on the Cork team more adept at playing that ball into Michael Cussen, but to you, he’s that serial yellow-carder who keeps getting into scrapes. He’ll probably take up Geraghty today and, well, it’s hard to see both of them lasting the distance. But, as Dan might say, if you don’t know him, don’t judge him.
He’s from a place called Cill na Martra, the second smallest parish in the biggest county in Ireland, a few miles outside Macroom, off the road to Ballyvourney, but as a kid he developed a passion for west Cork football and west Cork footballers more than 50 miles down the road. There was Castlehaven and Tompkins and Cahalane. And even though they were junior, there was Urhan and Ciaran O’Sullivan too. He remembers going with his father Donal as a 12-year-old to see them play Midleton in a county junior championship replay in 1992 in Ballingeary.
"I’ll never forget it. The first day Ciaran was awesome. The second day he was having a brilliant game again when one of the Midleton lads turned round and made shit of his nose. Ciaran was down for three or four minutes, blood pissing out of his nose.
Next thing, he gets up, the ball comes in and Ciaran grabs it underneath his own goalpost, goes straight up the centre of the field and shoes the ball straight on the '45 and splits the posts.
My father turns round to me and says, ‘That man will be playing for Cork next year.’" And at that, his son vowed that’s how he’d play for Cork too. Like Cahalane, like Ciaran. Blood and bandages, boy.
And that’s how he played for them as a minor. With passion. Raw passion at times but passion, and when the Cork senior hurlers were presented with their 2000 Munster medals the same night as O’Leary and his colleagues were presented with their All-Ireland minor football medals, Diarmuid O’Sullivan, a two-time All Star even then, made a point of going over to O’Leary to tell him how much he loved the way he played the game.
A year later they were teammates winning an All-Ireland junior medal together, and a year later, on the senior panel, winning a Munster football championship together. O’Leary had to wait until he was 21 to break onto the starting 15 though. When he did, he did with intent.
“I thought, ‘Feck it, a tougher attitude to this setup would be no harm at all. We’ll try not to take any prisoners if we can.’ I suppose I went a bit bald-headed into it though. Did a lot of stupid things.”
Whatever about doing anything stupid, O’Leary managed to do something unique in that 2003 league campaign, picking up a yellow card in each of Cork’s seven league games, and just for good measure, picking up two in the last game against Tyrone. But over the years he’d like to think he’s tempered down that temper.
He’s no longer the wild buck of 2003, though, he’ll admit, some sort of red mist does seem to descend upon him when he encounters that green and gold.
And on days like that, he’s reminded it’s only a game, that there’s more to life. And he’ll agree. Yeah, it’s a game, there’s more to life, but what you must understand it’s that game which has helped him get through the life he’s had.
The first to go was Mark. They were cousins but more like twins; the same age, the same humour who’d “more or less lived with each other; him living up in our place or me down in theirs”. Then, in January of '99, Mark and his girlfriend broke up and all of a sudden he was dead. Suicide.
“It was an awful shock at the time. Because nothing like that had ever happened to us before. But that was my first year with the Cork minors and the football was a great thing to have. It gave me something to turn back to.”
O’Leary and Cork would win that year’s Munster final, inspired by a magical display from another dynamic wing back called Tom Kenny, but a few weeks before the following year’s Munster final, tragedy struck again.
This time it was Benny, his best friend.
"Benny, " he smiles, "Benny was a gas man. Strange, he had no interest in football but we had a bit of an old business going there. We bought a quad-bike between us, spraying weeds and spreading manure on farms for farmers. A couple of weeks before we played Kerry, there were about 13 or 14 of us out the back at home. Benny was spinning around on the bike. And feck it, it was a case of the two of us getting too used to that bike; we’d wear no helmets or anything like that, you know. And sure, whatever way he went across this little slope in the field, didn’t the bike turn and fall on top of him.
“At the start we were saying to ourselves, ‘This man is going to hop up now any second’, because he was a bit of a joker, like. But we went over, and Jesus, when we looked at him he had gone blue in the face. Myself and my brother Ciaran tried to clear his mouth but it was no good.” By the time the ambulance had hit Macroom, Benny was gone.
Again football offered some measure of solace and that summer Cork went on to claim Munster and then the All Ireland. O’Leary’s eyes light up at the memory of it and old teammates. Some of them you’ve heard of: Masters and McMahon, the latter of whom will play with him in Croke Park today; Conrad Murphy, who was the best of the lot of them; Kieran ‘Hero’ Murphy from Erins Own. But then there were others who you mightn’t have heard of. Paul Deane, Dinny O’Hare; “maybe not the most skilful but hard men and great lads as well.” Only in the last year or two with the seniors, has he experienced a team chemistry and bond like the boys of that summer enjoyed. It was the time of their lives and should have been the year of their lives, but before 2000 was out it had been the worst of O’Leary’s.
He’ll never forget the game that was on the box that day: Glenflesk and Nemo in the Munster club final, and himself and the father watching Moynihan and Johnny Crowley trying to win it nearly on their own. But as the day and game went on, his mother was becoming increasingly anxious. Ciaran, Noel’s 17-year-old brother, had yet to come home. There was no word from him or of him. Noel and his younger brother, Donal Og, told her to relax, reminding her that it wouldn’t be the first time he’d have stayed over at a friend’s. After the game was over though, there was still no word. They’d phoned Ciaran’s girlfriend who he’d visited the previous night and she’d said he’d gone home.
“The father was saying then, ‘God, maybe he was drunk coming home and fell somewhere. Donal Og, go into the shed and get our wellingtons and we’ll go to the fields and look for him.’” Donal Og went into the shed only to find Ciaran already there. Same story as Mark. Seventeen. Just finished with the girlfriend. Gone.
"Definitely what happened to Benny was a big part of it. Ciaran was there when it happened and he used to get upset about it. He’d always be on about it at home. But in saying that, you wouldn’t have taken much notice of it. I mean, it was natural enough he was upset about it.
“I think it was a pure spur-of-themoment thing. It and drink. In most of these cases that’s what it is; a spur-ofthe-moment decision brought on by the drink. Looking back, Ciaran wouldn’t have been the best to take drink. He was only 17, a bit of a wild lad but a good lad, but you could see that he used to get upset after drink.”
That’s why he’d tell anyone: know the people who don’t react well to it.
Be there to tell them the one that’s one too many, especially when that one might be the first. Be there to say hang on, everybody hurts, but it passes. It’s maybe not the normal message or cause advocated by a GAA player, but O’Leary feels strongly about this.
So do his younger brothers, who hardly drink at all.
“A lot of people mightn’t like talking about this, shy away from talking about it, but it’s happening every day in other homes. People might learn from it. I have no problem talking whatsoever about it. Or Benny or Mark. It was an unbelievable run for us at the time, but it happened. It’s a big part of who I am.”
There’s little O’Leary isn’t upfront about. At times he might sound all bashful like Paidi O Se just like he plays like a young Paidi O Se but the ‘Yerrah’ response is not for him. There is a refreshing honesty as well as affability about him. In the tree surgery business he set up a few years ago, beating around the bush is kept to a minimum. It’s the same in conversation. He cuts through the bullshit.
i heard o’leary is quite pleasant off the pitch & pretty quiet- cant see how he is a wannabe hardman
well said kev 
This would be most peoples experience alright. If Parkinson was around the top of the game he’d probably have figured this out. Calling out lads from your own art/trade/sport/hobbie is pretty pathetic and shows a distinct lack of respect.
Judging someone on what they are like just from pitch meetings is also silly. I have met guys (usually in some far flung place of the world) whom i played against in years gone by and they have said to me almost the exact same thing “you’re not half the prick i thought you were”. True story.
That’s very sad. Would suicide be very prevalent around that area in Cork?
I do find interviews with GAA players very uncultured however, you think the journalist would try and tidy the language up before publishing.
Macroom would have a fair bit of it over the years, but statically i wouldn’t be sure its any worse than other towns. Cill Na Matra is very rural though. Its hard for me to judge, i know quite a few people down that side, i know of 5 suicides over the years, there is definitely more. Cill Na Matra would be a particularly close knit place, so i’m sure they look out for each other and are very aware of the dangers after such tragedies.
What sportsmen do you think give the most cultured interviews?
not sure how calling players knobheads or wannabe hardemen is a breath of fresh air in punditry. each to their own I suppose. It would be one thing if Parkinson gave some insightful information to his analysis, but its basically just whatever crap he is thinking about someone at the time. calling Red Barry a dickhead because he backheeled a ball to keep it in play against Westmeath a case in point.
as appendage says, at least he is forthright in his thoughts, and puts his name to it. but some of the stuff he comes out with is ridiculous. just because its honest doesnt mean its worth listening to.
Parky comes out with some amount of shit but that’s the whole point, isn’t it? I do enjoy his double act with Roddy Collins. I believe there’s a market there for a post pub Friday sports talk show with the two of them similar to this format.
Just had a read of this lad’s tweets. Twitter really is the cancer of social media. Awful stuff, stream of consciousness shit that is very basic in it’s intelligence and spelling. Twitter was invented for attention seekers and it looks like this lad fits that bill nicely.
Just to clarify Gman, I don’t think it’s worth listening to and I’m disappointed that I’ve just spent 4 minutes of my life reading through it.
Just one thing that caught my eye - the old whinge about asking too much of players and what are the GPA doing about it and all. If you don’t like it, don’t fucking do it. There are hundreds of amateur athletes doing more than GAA players do and there isn’t a word about it. If I hear one more GAA player whinge about the lack of a social life I’ll shake my head in wonder and get on with my so called life.
Also wonder why is it necessary to quote whole articles in posts? It’s a pain in the hole when browsing on a hand held device.
Noel O’Leary certainly isn’t a wannabe hard man.
I completely agree with you, it’s a load of fucking shite. Dublin trained double days this year for a period and look what it did for their fitness, but i must say they are not blowing on about it as they knew they needed total commitment. Teams are doing it at all levels in the States at amateur level. Individuals do it all the time in individual sports.
The benefits of training more is results. Some GAA players are actually lazy bastards and would want to get over themselves.
What was worse though was LOI players still only training once a day even when they were full time!!! That was just outrageous.
For people like Totti who may not have read it before. Its also the best way for someone like me (who would passionately defend Noel O’ Leary) to get a point across, from the man himself says it all really.
Thats a great post. My sentiments exactly
yeah I’m not much a fan of twitter either. I’m not on it myself, and I’m not sure I see the purpose of it. I read one Wexford footballers twitter page and it was a load of shite. I’m not sure why sending messages to premiership footballers as if they were buddys and just posting inane thoughts that you may have at a particular time needs to be broadcast across the internet. it would be one thing if it was worth listenign to or if there was an insight into something, anything. but it just seems to be rambling rubbish. much like ‘Wooly’. just spouting a load of rubbish for the sake of it.
I think Appendage menat others who quoted your post. it takes ages to scroll down through it 2 or 3 times once it is re posted.
Another thing, playing hurling & football IS a social life. Its a very sad reflection on all of us that “Social life” is ingrained to mean “Pub” “pissed” etc…
Its a way of life if you want to get the best out of yourself.
basically these fellas are repeating general conversation we may say to our mates while in a house having a beer watching a game.
I see where ye are all coming from on twitter but is it not just the same as what fellas are doing on here only they’re putting their name to it?
Some fellas here post every single waking thought they have. I don’t think anybody on twitter even does that. With texting radio and tv, forums and twitter there is a massive feeling out there among people that their opinion is very important. It has definitely all made people far more opinionated too. That’s a good thing in that we get to hear every side of every story but it also makes some people into over negative wind bags.
Great article above on Noel O’Leary by the way. Has changed my opinion of him a fair bit cos he is a fair annoying cunt to look at on the pitch.
Honestly i don’t think they are the same. Twitters value is in formation, real info, not that kinda shite |woolie" or the likes come out with. These guys just want to attract more followers. Thing is people are generally laughing at them rather than with them.
Some guys are interesting, but most of it now is just bull shit. Fellas arse licking each other online. Oh look at me, i’m friends with a few lads and we’re all International rules players and we’re great buddies now, come on Ireland blaa blaa blaa." I’m curious about some guys and what motivates them, but its got too much now. Culled a good few recently and really just use it for news now, which it is brilliant for. I get news as it happens and i follow a load of sports science people so its great for that, but i’m sick of reading about lads wanting retweets for their fucking birthday from Stevie McDonnell or that Diurmuid Sully is “grassroots training” with the u8’s. Does anybody really care? Its normal, there are 10k more people doing the exact same thing.
A forum is a different animal, there is definitely better discussions (even thought there is plenty shite) on here than you’d ever get on twitter.
Yes I meant people re quoting the article in the thread. Ashamed of my grammatical mistakes and typos.