It was a lot more amicable between Diarmuid Connolly and Lee Keegan in the shadow of Croke Park yesterday than it ever was within.
Arguably the two outstanding players for their respective counties of the past decade or so, their duels were among the most engaging elements of Gaelic football’s most enduring rivalry of the 2010s.
Bar a few words across the dinner table during a brief link-up with the Ireland team for a one-off International Rules Test in 2015, Connolly and Keegan had never spoken. Not even on the field.
“No, never had a verbal conversation on the field,” Boylesports ambassador Connolly confirmed.
“I don’t think that’s his nature though, he was more of a physical, hands-on sort of player, he wasn’t a guy that was in your ear.
“I did mark players, a few of the Donegal lads down the years, that would be in your ear more so than being physical, trying to get in your head, but Lee was never like that.
“Both of them had their challenges to be fair, but what Lee did was way more effective than what other players did. Like, if you’re just talking in my ear and I’m getting the better of you, you’re not getting in.
“Whereas if I’m not playing well and you’re in my ear, well then that can curtail you a little bit. But he was never like that.”
“The two of us probably didn’t want to talk because we were nearly always marking each other, but absolutely he's a sound guy off the pitch,” Keegan observed. “We had a bit of craic there talking kids, punditry and a bit of s***e talk in between.
“Talking about some of the mad stuff we did in the 10 years we were playing against each other, there was enough in that alone to talk for an hour or so. If you can’t respect him for what he did as a player, then you are crazy. I loved every bit of playing against him.
“If you look at the rivalry in general it was always bubbling in nearly every position but, for some reason, us two got a lot more attention. Maybe it was the sending off or some of the mad stuff we were doing off the ball, checking jersey sizes.”
The sending off that Keegan refers to occurred in the drawn 2015 All-Ireland semi-final, when their personal rivalry hit its nadir.
After an entanglement in which Connolly appeared to throw a punch, he was sent off, with Keegan yellow-carded.
Dublin challenged it all the way, however, and in the small hours of the following Saturday morning, the day of the replay, the red card was controversially thrown out by the Disputes Resolution Authority, which was split on the matter.
It was alleged by Dublin during the course of the hearing that Connolly had been “choked” while on the ground with Keegan.
“I got about four or five hours of sleep,” Connolly recalled. “It was a long process, we were there all day long nearly.
“I was told to go, it was half three or a quarter to four, in the Regency, up the road here. Jim [Gavin] just turned around and goes, 'Look, you need to just go home and get some sleep'.
“So I got home, got in the front door and Shane O'Hanlon rang me and told me, 'Look, you're ready to go the next day'.
“We sat down that morning, me and Jim, and he was like, 'Do you want to play? Do you want to start?' In the back of my head - of course I wanted to start - but in the back of my head, I'm thinking, 'I'm f**ked here'.
“I said that to Lee, we were having a conversation there, and I said that to Lee, like, in hindsight probably if he had played more of his game rather than focusing on me, he probably would have played a better game.
“I was wrecked, I came off after 50 minutes I think, I probably shouldn't have started really. There was just so much that week, all the energy was sapped out of me. We were there until stupid o'clock.
“I still give out to Shane O'Hanlon about this, he rang me at four o'clock that morning with the result. But sure then I couldn't sleep for the next two hours because you were so excited, do you know what I mean? If he waited until the next morning, at least I might have got a bit of sleep.”
Connolly was just 28 at that stage but would only complete one more full season with Dublin, in 2016.
The following year he was suspended for three months after an incident with linesman Ciaran Brannigan in the opening Championship game against Carlow.
He packed in inter-county football in 2018, was coaxed back for the run-in to the five-in-a-row in 2019 and then the following year he was gone, for good this time.
And he doesn’t miss it at all.
“No. I finished up in ‘18 and I made my peace, I was done with it, and obviously I came back in ‘19, late in the season in ‘19, and I knew, I had sat down with my family, a couple of my close friends, with the management team and a lot of the guys on the team and made the decision to come back for a couple of months but I knew that that’s all it was.
“I’d been done anyway, ‘18 I’d be done. I made my peace, I was never coming back to play and I was dragged back for a couple of months and that was it.
“I wanted to pursue other angles, other parts of my life as well and a lot of that took a hit by playing for Dublin for so long. The time and effort that you put into it, I don’t think I had the fire anymore either.
“I think that kind of died out a little bit and when that happens, in my opinion, if that happens to a player, you kind of have to take a step back. When I came back in ‘19, I wasn’t the same player that I was in ‘17 or ‘16 or the years previous.
“I was the one driving the standards. I was the one doing the extra stuff. I was the one getting up early in the morning but I wasn’t doing that and it’s not a mindset thing, it’s something that changed, do you know that sort of way? I just seen the bigger picture and, yeah, I’d enough of it at that stage.”
Big rivals, Dublin and Mayo, look to fight their way into the last four in the All-Ireland quarter-finals this weekend. And BoyleSports have an Epic offering:
Dublin to win @ 6/4
Mayo to win @ 11/4
For more, visit offers.boylesports.com
