‘Bad result, great day’ at the O’Mahony club
Breakfast time in the Cork Constitution, and the temperatures were already rising. A young boy was firm in his reprimand of his pals, squirming and giggling under the wide-screen television: “Will you shut up and watch the haka! It’s really important!”
More than 20 years ago, there was another rugby-mad youngster in this clubhouse. Young Peter O’Mahony was enthralled with his dad, John, playing for Con. As a three-year-old, he would insist on going into the dressing room to tape his head and wear strapping. He was mimicking the men that would go on to do battle on the rugby field.
His mother, Caroline, was relating the tale proudly yesterday as her boy captained the British and Irish Lions in their first Test against New Zealand. She was swapping stories with an ebullient Der O’Riordan, a former team-mate of O’Mahony’s father.
Dad? Well he was more than 12,000 miles away, rather closer to the action.
He, too, is remembered as ‘‘an abrasive blindside flanker’’. Like father, like son.
According to Caroline, her son would shower with his father’s team after the game. He was keen to learn. “I swear to God, he used to go in on the team talks and I used to say to John, ‘How can he with all that language?’ He would bring in a gear bag with tape and everything.
“He is so quiet that people laugh he is so aggressive on the pitch. His personality is so polar opposite. He doesn’t like to be in the limelight. At home he is extremely organised and meticulous.”
As the Lions’ 30-15 loss to New Zealand unfolded, many club members halted shovelling down bowls of cereal and quaffing cups of Cork’s own Barry’s Tea for a moment to yell instructions to the team and their own favourite son. It was as if they really believed they could hear, on the other side of the world.
This was a no-nonsense viewing experience. The pints of Murphy’s were eschewed. The blinds were rolled down low to block out the midsummer morning. And the red lights glowed in honour of the team, and one of their own, the captain.
“Good man, Seanie”, they bellowed as one of Ireland’s own – O’Mahony’s compatriot on the other side of the scrum, Sean O’Brien – finished the foundations laid by Liam Williams, Jonathan Davies and Elliot Daly to score his try.
“C’mon Watson,” they encouraged the English wing. But when they shouted out “G’wan Peter”, it was with the familiarity of a friend and former team-mate. Or in the case of Caroline and her mother Maura, of a proud mother and grandmother.
Club honorary secretary Kevin Fielding explained: “O’Mahony Snr is known to all as ‘Con John’, such is his devotion to the club. He was in his day an abrasive blindside flanker.”
Fielding recalled the Lions Test captain as a teenager when he was playing his competitive rugby for his school, the Presentation Brothers College.
“He would still come down to the club to spend extra hours training and running,” very often with his father by his side. He was “deadly serious”.
His dad was a rugged blindside flanker, too. Like father, like son
O’Riordan said of the O’Mahony clan: “They were like little ducks. Peter is the eldest, then you had Mark, then Cian. They were all very good rugby players. They are always around the club – Peter is always around because his dad is always around. This a family. We are made up of lots of different families.”
Caroline, herself a keen rower, describes the club as her son’s “second home”. O’Mahony always makes time for his Con family, once playing the elf to fellow clubman Donncha O’Callaghan’s Father Christmas.
In the second half, as the All Blacks did what they always seem to do at Eden Park, the clubroom in Con fell into a stoic silence.
Despite the disappointment, there was a sense of relief that O’Mahony had come through the game injuryfree. His mother said: “I don’t like watching, to be honest. You are just worried all the time because he has had some horrific injuries. “Never did we ever think it was going to happen. To Peter this just means so much. That Lions jersey is just everything. Peter would be humbled by it. He likes to keep in the background.”
A club member shouts out to Caroline after the match: “A bad result but a great day for the club.” An accurate reflection of breakfast in Con with the Lion’s pride.