KEADY WAS AN INSPIRATION

GEAROID MCINERNEY has revealed how he used to bunk off class and have long chats about hurling with the late Tony Keady.

Mcinerney’s father, Gerry, won All-irelands as a halfback alongside the inspirational Keady (left) in 1987 and 1988. Gearoid then went to the same school, Calasanctius College, where Keady worked as a caretaker.

Keady passed away weeks before Galway’s All-ireland triumph and Mcinerney revealed: “You might be going to the toilet during class and you could run into him and end up chatting until the bell went for end of class.

“You’d be in trouble going back into the class, grabbing the schoolbag. You’d be saying, ‘Tony said it’s OK if I didn’t come back!’ And you’d get, ‘Tony is not a teacher!’

“I think nearly five or six times a year that would happen. He was great, a great character, very good with all the students and kids. He was like a mentor, not just a caretaker.

“I would have been very close with him. He was our manager going through schools teams and all of that too.”