No bull in these memoirs

Some day he’ll enter those turnstiles in Thomond Park.

He’ll carry no special pass. He’ll look for no special treatment or VIP entry. He’ll just pay in “like any punter and in I’ll go,” he says, “same as anyone else”, unannounced, just as he humbly entered a rugby field for the first time in Bruff 20 years ago.

As of now though, he still hasn’t gone back to see them play since he waved goodbye to all that and all of us last Stephen’s Day. It’s still too soon for that. Instead his days are spent mostly here, out in Cappamore, either in his fine spacious house with Fiona and the three kids, or out on the fields with his father, farming sucklers for beef. He likes this, life in the quiet fields, away from the roars of support of the Thomond faithful and the roars of laughter from the bowels of the dressing rooms below, but sometimes there’s no escaping them or what they shared.