Kennelly: Croker high tackle reaction ‘really got up my nose’

TADHG KENNELLY has admitted ‘it really got up my nose’ that his heavy hit on Nicholas Murphy in the 2009 All-Ireland final was labelled a pre-meditated, cynical act.

Kennelly has just completed his first season back in Australian Rules football after his 2009 sojourn that saw him complete a single, but highly successful, championship campaign with Kerry. That campaign climaxed with All-Ireland success and, early in the final against Cork, Kennelly infamously put Murphy to the ground with a dangerously high shoulder charge.

His subsequent recollection of events in his autobiography, where he admitted telling team-mate Paul Galvin ‘I’m going to charge in and hit someone at the start’, appeared to confirm it was pre-meditated.

But Kennelly, who was yesterday named in Ireland’s 22-man International Rules panel, says the ghost-written book was misinterpreted and he claimed to be annoyed that anyone would suggest he’d deliberately injure anyone.

“The way it was interpreted was that it was something that I had planned, to go out and hit Nicholas Murphy straight away,” said Kennelly.

“If I tried to plan what happened there is no way in the world I would have been able to do that.

“That was the thing that irritated me the most. Personally, I expected more from people who thought I would go out and do something like that. It really got up my nose. If (the book) was written by an Irish journo it wouldn’t have been as bad.

“It still would have been said that in the first 10 minutes I was going to be physically hard and I have no problem with that. If I hadn’t hit Nicholas I would have wrote the same thing — that I wanted to be tough and let them know we’re in the game.”

Kennelly and 2009 team-mate Tommy Walsh are the only two Kerrymen selected by Tohill as none of the current Kingdom panel are involved.

Kieran Donaghy and Declan O’Sullivan trained but both have club commitments while Paul Galvin, who has competed before, wasn’t considered.

Tohill, in his role as an RTÉ TV pundit, angered many Kerry fans last summer by highlighting an incident between Galvin and Cork’s Eoin Cadogan which led to Galvin being suspended.

“We invited players who we felt were suited to playing the game and wanted to play the game, who had what it took to play the game and were coming off the back off a good season,” said Tohill when questioned about Galvin’s exclusion.

“There were a number of players who possibly could have played but we didn’t want to waste anybody’s time. We wanted to be fair to people.

“He (Galvin) was one of the guys in the category that I described. We felt we wouldn’t be asking Paul. To be fair to him we didn’t want to waste his time and we thought the right thing was to let it go for this season.”

Tohill, along with selectors Eoin Liston, Sean Óg de Paor and Kevin O’Brien, had been expected to confirm a 23-man panel.

But they went with a 22-man squad as Down’s new Allstar forward Benny Coulter will miss the first test with a hamstring injury but will be available for the second.

In Coulter’s absence for the first test at Limerick’s Gaelic Grounds on Saturday week, standby player Niall McNamee appears best-placed to come in. The team will be captained by Armagh veteran Steven McDonnell with Galway defender Finian Hanley his deputy.

In all, just 10 players have previous experience of the hybrid code with Bernard Brogan, James Kavanagh, Michael Murphy and Walsh part of a dozen exciting newcomers.

Tohill has warned his players that if they wish to retain the Cormac McAnallen Cup, which they won in 2008, they must keep their cool when they ship big hits from the Aussies.

“We didn’t react well to being tackled in the past and that’s something we are working on,” said Tohill.

2010 Irish International Rules panel:

Steven McDonnell, Captain (Armagh), Finian Hanley, Vice Captain (Galway), Colm Begley (Laois), Bernard Brogan (Dublin), Graham Canty (Cork), Sean Cavanagh (Tyrone), Marty Clarke (Down), Stephen Cluxton (Dublin), Brendan Donaghy (Armagh), Leighton Glynn (Wicklow), Daniel Goulding (Cork), James Kavanagh (Kildare), Paddy Keenan (Louth), Tadhg Kennelly (Kerry), Sean McDermott (Roscommon), Ciaran McKeever (Armagh), Kevin McKernan (Down), Brendan Murphy (Carlow), Michael Murphy (Donegal), Kevin Reilly (Meath), Michael Shields (Cork), Tommy Walsh (Kerry).

Standby players: Emmet Bolton (Kildare), Gary Brennan (Clare), Gary Connaughton (Westmeath), Benny Coulter (Down), Eamonn Fennell (Dublin), Johnny McCarthy (Limerick), Nial McNamee (Offaly).