In today’s Hospital Pass, the strange case of the Meath forward who was told to stop going for goals against Louth, and the Laois lads once again underline their status as the GAA’s Twitter kings.
It was a rare feat indeed when Cian Ward of Meath scored four goals in a Gaelic football match last weekend.
It would probably happen again if that particular Louth full back line was sent into another Championship match any time soon, but it may not even have happened last Saturday if Ward – imaginatively nicknamed “Wardy” in Meath GAA circles – had not flagrantly ignored the advice of his manager Seamus “Banty” McEnaney.
Wardy revealed in the aftermath of that game that he had been told not to go for goals, although suggestions that Banty’s advice was borne of sympathy with the woeful Wee County appear to be wide of the mark.
As anyone who’s watched him in action for club Wolfe Tones will testify, Ward could never be accused of chipping over a handy point when a difficult goal is on, and he had few regrets about his shot choice at the weekend – even if it did get him a rollicking from the boss.
“I think I had six shots for goal,” said Ward, who tweets away to his heart’s content at @wardcian. “Look, one or two of them I just thought they were on, I got a bit of a rollicking at half-time for going for goal all the time. But the opportunities presented themselves. It was just lucky because on another day you mightn’t get a sniff of a goal chance.”
The Twitter kings of the GAA
Speaking of Twitter, for a while the status of GAA’s Top Twits was fought out between the lads from Mayo and Kerry. In the ultimate virtual tag-team event, Aidan O’Shea, Peadar Gardiner, Billy Joe Padden, Alan Dillon and Conor “The Mort” Mortimer battled it out with the likes of Darran O’Sullivan, Barry John Keane, Killian Young and Eamon Fitzmaurice for top honours.
But then the lads from Laois came along and, in a definite case of the web defying reality, blew Kerry and Mayo apart.
MJ Tierney (@mjtierney13) is vying with The Mort for the title of JOE’s favourite stylish-forward/tweeter combination, and Kieran Lillis (@kieranlillis) and Colm Begley (Begz_17) are also worth a look, but the one that caught our eye today was Colm “Woolly” Parkinson, refashioned online as Woolberto.
Parkinson always played on the edge, and that hasn’t stopped now that his days on the field have come to an end.
In the wake of the Dublin-Kildare game at the weekend, there was widespread sympathy for Lilywhites corner back Aindriu Mac Lochlainn, the corner back who was deemed to have fouled Bernard Brogan for the decisive score.
But Woolberto was having none of it, tweeting “was away the past week…saw the dub game…controversial ending, wasnt a free…delighted for that knobhead mcloughlin tho.”
He added, “iv marked him a few times…very annoying fella….hes tight enough but a right fool….maybe hes diff off the field.”
Weaned as we’ve been on anodyne comments from GAA “personalities”, we think that’s quite brilliant, and the fact that Laois play Kildare in the qualifiers next week is the icing on the cake.
