Long and Maguire’s shared piece of international history
WHEN Kilkenny’s Sean Maguire came on for Tipperary’s Shane Long, to make his senior Irish debut on Friday night, a little piece of international football history was scripted.
Neither counties are football strongholds, in fairness, so the odds against a Kilkenny man replacing a Tipperary man in a World Cup qualifier were probably 1,000/1, if not higher.
Before Long, the only Tipperary footballers to play for Ireland were the Coulson brothers, Con and George from Clogheen.
Con won five caps before the Second World War while with Lincoln and Notts County, while George won three immediately after, all with Lincoln.
As for Maguire, he became the second Kilkenny native to represent Ireland, almost 80 years after the first, Matt O’Mahoney of Mullinavat.
O’Mahoney, of Bristol Rovers, won six caps for the Free State team, as Ireland was known then, and also played for the IFA team in the Home Championships.
O’Mahoney holds the unique feat of being the first international to travel by ‘plane for a game, arriving in Dublin on September 18, 1938, barely an hour before a friendly against Switzerland at Dalymount – Ireland won 4-0.
It’s less than 40 kilometres from Maguire’s hometown of Castlecomer to Long’s village of Gortnahoe.
The significance of how far they’ve journeyed was not lost, one suspects, on either player on Friday when their paths crossed on the Aviva Stadium touchline.